


Hold My Hand

by lolo313



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Art, Big Bang Challenge, Bottom Dean, Bottom Sam, Established Relationship, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Top Dean, Top Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:20:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolo313/pseuds/lolo313
Summary: Sam isn't sure he can do this anymore--he can't keep being Dean's dirty little secret. A case in Missouri brings things to a head, while memories from the summer this all began keep bubbling to the surface. Wincest Big Bang 2017.





	1. Hold My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, first and foremost, to my wonderful artist Nisaki ([tumblr](https://nisaki-chan.tumblr.com/)), who went above and beyond when creating the amazing art for this fic. Secondly, many man MANY thanks to my beta, Mal, whose keen editorial skills helped turned this story into what it is. And last but certainly not least, thank you to the mods for running this fest and making the world a more wincestuous place.
> 
> Art link: https://swan-song21.livejournal.com/835.html

            

            The last night in town is Sam’s favorite.

            They’re on that hunt high, riding the waves of smoke coiling up off another salt and burn. They’re giddy, like kids again, faces lit up by the crackle of orange flames, bolstered by the truth that the world is one little bit safer because of them. The scales of the universe tipped infinitesimally towards good.

            Normally, they celebrate. Dean would’ve pegged the bar on their first day, a step up from seedy, but not by much. Somewhere where the drinks are cheap enough not to burn too big a hole in their wallets, but not so cheap that every two drunk is looking to pick a fight by nine o’clock. Somewhere where they could kick back in a booth, down a whiskey or three, and thank God above they’d lived to tell another tale.

            This time it’s O’Malley’s, little Irish gig on the corner of Main and Aspen. Sam had to admit, it had charm. And one dollar shots, which is probably the feature that most attracted Dean, and not the polished countertop or the three generations of photographs behind the bar. They order Scotch (Dean neat, Sam with a hunk of ice) and take them to a corner booth, tucked in the back, where they can watch the entrance. Old habits.

            “Cheers.” Dean knocks his glass to Sam’s, tips his head back, downs it with a wince that sings into a smile. Sam sips his, tries to make his knee stop bouncing. Dean waves the bartender over, wiggles his empty glass in the air.

            They talk bullshit. Sports. The weather. Where to next. They wind their way back to the case. Dean’s on his third glass, Sam lagging behind with two. His brother is loose, a dopey grin pulling his lips up into his cheeks, but all Sam can see are his eyes.

            “Man, when that sucker had me up against the wall, I swore I was done for.”

            “Dean Winchester, done in by an eight year old girl? That’d’ve been something to see.”

            Dean leans in across the table, finger pointed in a threat, except it sways just left of Sam’s head and the effect is lost. “That little girl could _float_ and set fires with her eyes. A man twice as good as me would count himself lucky to get outta there alive.”

            “No one’s twice as good as you.” Sam says it low, quiet, into the amber depths of his tumbler, but Dean’s face goes mahogany smooth and he sits back. He watches Sam, watches the dip of his throat when he swallows, notices the way his hair falls across his face. Sam feels him watching, feels his cheeks heat up and his cock twitch. He sucks the diminished ice cube past his lips. He rolls it around inside his mouth, eyes on Dean.

            “Hey, barkeep?” Dean whistles, hand in the air. “Flight of shots.” His eyes dart to Sam’s mouth. “Tequila. Top shelf.”

            “We celebrating something?” Sam asks, but he already knows the answer.

            When the shots arrive they line them up between them, five golden brims full to overflowing. Sam taps a little salt out onto his wrist and asks for a lime.

            “Dude, don’t be such a fucking girl.”

            Sam ignores him, lifts a shot glass to his mouth, shoots it back. It burns like molten gold all the way down, uncoiling sharp claws deep in his belly. He feels it in his toes, warm and loose and dangerous. He holds Dean’s gaze when he drags his tongue along his wrist, salt stinging his lips. Dean swallows. Sam pops the lime into his mouth, sucks till his eyes water. Plops it into the ashtray with a satiated sigh.

            Dean throws two down the hatch, one after the other in rapid succession. It’s warm, April in Arkansas, and they’re still wearing their coats, but the flush on Dean’s neck has nothing to do with the weather. He fumbles, fingers fluttering, setting down the second shot glass. He watches Sam with hunter’s eyes. Waiting him out, looking for a weak spot. A time to strike.

            “So, where should we head next?” Sam asks. It’s a curveball, something to fill the silence, a hammer to the ice. Dean stumbles, thrown off guard. He narrows his eyes at Sam. It’s not what he was expecting, but Sam has learned it’s better to keep Dean on his toes. Make him wait.

            “Any leads?” Dean’s drawl tries and fails to hide the slur soaking up the ends of his words. He rests his elbow on the table, leans into it. His face hovers in the air before Sam.

            “Chatter here and there, bits and pieces. Nothing concrete.” The room spins when Sam jerks his head to the door. Just another lowlife stumbling in from a hard day. Sam turns back and Dean’s still staring, hard line of his mouth sharp enough to cut glass. Sam thinks he’s seeing double, remembers there are still two shots left, grabs one and tosses it back. He sputters a little, coughs.

Dean barks out a laugh. “Careful, Sammy. Never could handle your liquor.”

            “I can handle it just fine.” He reaches for the last shot, but Dean grabs his wrist. The rough callous of his thumb rests against his pulse. Their eyes meet. Dean holds on for a moment too long, then lets go. They both retreat back into the plush safety of the booth. Sam resists the urge to reach out.

            “So, those leads…” Dean scans the bar. No one is paying them any attention, but Dean has to be sure. Always has to be sure. “You, uh, you want to get started on research or anything?”

            “A little. It’s back at the motel. I can show you.” Under the table Sam spreads his legs, lets his knee bump against Dean’s. Their thighs rest together. “If you want.”

            Dean’s face is turned towards the pool table, making like he’s following the game, but Sam knows he’s watching him out the corner of his eye. Without looking he grabs the last shot, downs it, slams the glass back on the table with a grunt.

            Sam has never been more aroused.

 

            They walk back to the motel. Dean insisted on one for the road, and they were blurry-eyed, rubber-legged drunk by the time they closed their tab and wandered out into the crisp night air. Sam wishes he could call it sobering, each breath an icy slice in his lungs, and maybe it does pep him up a little. Dean’s long gone, singing Asia, air guitar and everything. Sam can’t help but laugh when Dean hits the solo, legs spread and rocker fingers pointed to the stars. Sam doubles over, holding his sides, belly so sore it hurts. Dean flashes a million dollar smile and takes a bow.

            It takes Sam three tries to get the key in the lock, Dean moaning and groaning, leaning against the wall. Finally everything clicks into place and they’re practically falling onto the lush carpet. Dean shucks off his boots while Sam hangs his coat up. He wobbles to the tiny table blanketed with newspaper clippings.

            “So those leads I mentioned. There’s a missing person in Biloxi, maybe we could—” Sam’s sentence gets lost to the gasp. He reaches forward to steady himself on the table while two arms wrap their way around his waist.

            “I don’t wanna talk about no case.” Dean’s voice is a low rumble next to his ear. Sam can smell the liquor on it. “Haven’t we worked hard enough yet?”

Dean fidgets with the buckle of Sam’s pants, and Sam shuts his eyes with a shudder. He’s white-knuckled on the table, fingers twitching. Hungry for it, but even through a tequila fog he keeps his wits, lets Dean lead, moves slow, careful not to spook him. “Don’t we deserve a little reward?” Dean slips a hand down Sam’s pants.

            “ _Yes_.” Sam chokes out the word, bucks into Dean’s touch. It’s rough and hard, tugging at his cock. Lips graze the nape of his neck, moving to the side of his throat. Dean presses his mouth to Sam’s pulse and sucks. Sam moans around a swear.

            Dean presses his other hand to Sam’s belly, holds him in place. He can feel Dean’s cock against his ass. He pushes back onto it, urges him on. Dean grinds their hips together, grip still strong on Sam’s dick.

            They fall into an easy push and pull. Sam’s jeans slide down his thighs. The rough rub of denim against his boxers is delicious friction. His nails chip the wood of the table when Dean pops the button of his jeans. Sam listens to the snig of his zipper being tugged down, and then Dean’s cock is nudging at his cleft, rubbing at the seam between his cheeks.

            “Fuck, Dean.” Sam palms the table, bends over it and pushes his ass back onto Dean’s cock. Dean laughs from his throat, a deep rumble trapped in his chest. He hooks a finger into the waistband and tugs Sam’s boxers down. His cock pops free and bounces in the air.

            “Sammy, Sammy. What are we going to do with you?” Sam hears the creak of Dean’s knees when he squats, feels his hands, big and strong on his ass, spreading him apart to look at the most secret part of him. Dean whistles.

            When Dean swipes the fat side of his tongue over Sam’s hole, he bucks and nearly breaks the table. He spreads his legs wide as he can with his jeans still pooled around his ankles and does his best to brace himself. He settles in for it, because there isn’t much Dean doesn’t like when it comes to sex, but Sam knows from experience that there’s nothing he loves more than _this_.

            Dean eats his ass like an ice cream cone on a Sunday afternoon in July. Runs his tongue all over it, quick licks here and there like he’s chasing a line of melted vanilla. Swirls it around his hole till the muscles relax and he can dip inside. The table cuts sharp into Sam’s stomach, but it could be made of razor blades and he still wouldn’t care, not when Dean’s tongue wiggles inside him and his teeth scrape over skin. Sam presses his forehead against the wood, relishes the cool while the rest of him feels on fire. Sweat beads at his hairline and his shirt clings to his lower back.

            Dean puts his entire mouth over Sam’s hole and nibbles. His fingers knead the sore muscles of Sam’s ass, spreading him impossibly wide. Sam pants open-mouthed, breath fogging the table. His thighs start to tremble when Dean puffs out air over the dusting of hair at the top of Sam’s crack. his knees wobble as Dean stands and drapes himself over Sam’s back, gets his hands underneath him and hauls him to his feet.

            “Come on, easy does it.” He spins Sam around in his arms and they’re falling back onto the bed, mouths mashed together. Under the dollar store toothpaste and the acrid aftertaste of booze, Sam tastes himself, ripe on Dean’s tongue. He moans into his brother’s mouth.

            Somehow he manages to get Dean’s pants off along with his own. They shed their shirts, and their sweat-slick chests glide together like well-oiled pistons. Dean’s nails dig into his back, anchoring Sam to him as their mouths move against each other’s. It’s sloppy—they’re out of practice. Dean doesn’t normally let Sam kiss him, but he’s too blissed out, too shitfaced, to question it, not when Dean’s nipping down his jaw and sucking a burnt plum on the side of his neck.

            Sam’s fingers find a nipple, squeeze. Dean curses and arches into the touch. His cock is flopping against his belly, the head slick with a sheen of dribbled pre-cum. A drop falls on his stomach, mats in the sparse trail of hairs below his bellybutton. Sam’s mouth is buried in the top of Dean’s hair, sucking on a strand of hair, anything, as long as it’s Dean’s. Dean shuffles down, latches his mouth over a pebbled nub, sucks till Sam’s whining. His teeth scrape the edge, tongue flicks out, teasing.

            “Baby boy got all sensitive on me.” Dean talks to Sam’s stomach, inching his mouth south. “Love those little noises you make for me.” And Sam knows Dean must be drunk, drunker than drunk, because he doesn’t call Sam _baby boy_ , not anymore. Not since—

            “ _Fuck—_ ” Sam chokes on his own profanity when Dean takes his cock in his mouth, no buildup, no peppered kisses to the head, no swipe of the tongue along the underside. Just swallows him, mouth fluttering open till Sam’s hitting the back of his throat, and Dean’s not stopping. He bobs up and down, up and down, messy like he’s never done this before, but he has, oh he has. Spit dribbles down Sam’s balls, wets the sheets and the mass of dark curls at the base of his cock. The sounds, those back-of-the-throat gagging sounds, are filthy and Sam strains to catch every single one. He’s got one hand fisted in Dean’s hair, guiding, not pushing, the other balled in the comforter like it’s his only lifeline. Sam huffs and puffs while his brother chokes him down, then slides off with a _pop_.

            “Forgot how good you taste.” Dean wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Dean crawls back up, face hovering over Sam’s, bleary eyed and red-mouthed. His lips glisten and Sam licks them clean.

            The weight of him marvels Sam, even now. How light he is, comparatively. Sam wraps his arms around Dean’s back, hugs him in, intertwines their legs. Dean shifts their weight, rolls them over so Sam is perched atop him. Dean cups Sam’s face, twirls a bit of hair around a finger. He’s got a crazy twist to his smile. “In the nightstand.”

            Sam obeys, not knowing, half hoping, when he slides the drawer open and grabs the stashed bottle of lube. Sam pops the cap, dribbles a liberal portion onto his fingers, reaches between his legs for his hole, when Dean grabs his wrist.

            “Nuh uh,” he says and guides his hand down, places Sam’s fingers against his own hole, presses.

            Sam’s heart beats faster. The blood pounds in his ears. His face, the air, feels hot. He watches Dean’s mouth, follows his eyes, when he circles a finger, then two, pushing in gently. Dean doesn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the ceiling above him, but his lips part in a moan when Sam wiggles a finger inside.

            He doesn’t know whether to go fast or slow, hard or easy. Always, during these wild nights, their grand finales, when they’re liquor loose and high from an inflated sense of purpose, when Dean drinks his guard down and the room’s paid up and _who gives a fuck if the neighbors hear, we’ll be gone by morning_ , it’s Sam on his back or on all fours, pressing back against Dean’s dick while his brother pounds into him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to hurt, because if it hurts it’ll make it punishment and somehow still not okay but a little less fucked up. Sam never dared to dream, to entertain the thought of Dean with his legs hitched up against his chest, spread open and inviting for Sam. Not since apple pie and stars twinkling like spilled salt on black velvet and green trees far as the eye could see.

            “You—are you sure?” Sam works another finger inside. He’s unsure how to go; he lost the roadmap years ago. He pumps them in and out, not fast, not slow.

            “Come on, Sammy.” Dean grips the back of Sam’s neck, pulls him down so his eyes cross to see him. “This ain’t prom. If you knock me up, I promise I won’t keep it.” He grabs the lube, squirts a dollop on Sam’s cock and slicks him up with slack-grip haste. Hooks his arms around his thighs and hugs them to his chest till his ass lifts off the bed. “You waiting for an invitation?”

            Sam scoots forward, nudges the head of his cock against Dean’s hole. Grabs the back of his knees to steady himself and pushes in. Dean sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, but when Sam stops he urges him on. Sam sinks into the tight heat of his brother’s body, bottoms out, hips flush with Dean’s ass. He shudders, a thrill racing up his spine. Dean stretches his neck, unclenches the muscles of his stomach.

            “Fuck me, Sammy. When’d you get so big?”

            “Drank lots of milk. Strong bones.” Sam lowers onto his elbows, brackets on either side of Dean’s head, like it’s an afterthought, an addition.

            “Only bone I care about’s the one stuffed in my ass. _Christ_.” Dean huffs out a grunt and grits his teeth.

            “Do you want me to—”

            “I want you to stop prancing around and fuck me.”

            And Sam does, sliding halfway out and snapping his hips back. The pace is brutal, wet smack of skin on skin loud enough to be heard through the paper-thin walls if it weren’t for Dean’s grunting encouragement drowning them out. He’s filthy, worse than a Tijuana whore.

            “Fuck yeah, come on Sammy, come on, give it to me. Yeah, show me how you use that big boy dick, _come on_.” He’s loud, nearly shouting, and a flush of shame washes over Sam, submerges his head in the miasma funk of their own sweaty bodies. He screws his eyes shut, focuses on the roll of his hips, the litany of words spilling from Dean’s mouth. “Yeah, fuck me, Sammy, I know you been dreaming bout this, come on, show me how much you fucking love it.”

            And Sam does, God help him he does. He loves the tightness, loves feeling Dean battered and loose around his cock, loves the bite of his nails in his ass, Dean pulling, dragging, pushing him to fuck him _harder, deeper, faster_. Loves the sweat-slick sheen of his brow and the sloppy kiss Dean presses to his jaw when he misses his mouth. Loves the hefty weight of Dean’s cock in his hand when he jerks him off in time with his thrusts.

            Sam feels Dean tense around him, sees his lower back arch off the bed when he comes, thick, ropey spurts across his chest and belly. Sam loses himself in the pungent smell of it, the tacky stick of his fingers as he tugs another dribble out of him. And then the muscles in Sam’s back go taunt, toes curling in on themselves and he’s coming, spilling deep in his brother’s ass, arms trembling with the weight of him, the force of his own orgasm like a sledgehammer.

            They both catch their breath. Dean doesn’t look at him. Instead, he waits, like Sam has somehow inconvenienced him and would prefer it if he kindly moved along. The stretch of his neck, face turned away, reveals a motley smattering of red bites across his throat. Sam grabs a shirt, wipes the cum from his hand and from Dean’s chest, cleaning them up as best he can. Then, like clockwork, he pulls out, rolls over, and stills. He pretends to sleep, tries not to listen for the squeak of Dean moving into his own bed.

 

            The morning after is always the worst.

            Not just due to the wicked hangover or the bone deep ache that twinges whenever Sam walks too fast or sits too long. No, the second he rolls over and his arm falls on that cool, empty space on the bed beside him, that’s the moment when he worries he’ll be sick and some little part of him wants to die.

            Except this time Dean’s still there, half on his side, facing Sam.

            Sam watches as Dean stumbles to consciousness, cotton-mouthed and red-eyed. He wonders if Dean’s still a little drunk, smiling at him with a dopey grin. He stretches, the long, lean line of his body arching off the bed. His fingers find their way to Sam’s hair and he tugs him down, feathers a foul-mouthed kiss to his lips.

            “Where’s the coffee?”

            Sam gets up in a daze, throws some clothes on. He brews a pot while Dean showers. Over the spray he can hear him singing Zeppelin. Sam’s hands shake when he pours himself a cup. He swallows a sip; it burns going down. He is definitely awake.

            Dean, towel wrapped around his waist, accepts the offered mug. He gulps down a mouthful, sighs contentedly. Sam watches the water drip down his back.

            “So, missing person in Biloxi.”

            Sam drags his eyes to Dean’s face, busies himself with creamer while the gears of his mind stutter into action. “Biloxi—right. Yeah, um, father of three, went out for his nightly jog, never came back. That was about a week ago.”

            Dean nods, downs the rest of his coffee, lets the towel drop to the floor. Sam follows the flex of his muscles as he bends over, picks up his jeans and dances into them. “Well, it’s better than sitting around here all day.”

            Dean drives. Says they can make it by nightfall if they’re frugal with rest stops. Sam’s on edge, curled up in the passenger seat, forehead pressed to the window. He watches telephone poles zip past. They blend into a blur, a streak of brown against the blue-green horizon. Dean fiddles with the radio whenever they cross a state line, finds the classic rock station, and puts his hand back on Sam’s thigh.

            This, at least, is not new. Whatever magic the open road manages to produce, channeled through rubber tires and contained in a steel chassis, Dean falls under its spell, hook, line, and sinker. Maybe it’s the freedom, the offered possibilities of all those miles of highways, those acres of asphalt, that lets his shoulders descend and his jaw unclench. The sense that there’s real power humming beneath your feet, engine roaring, and there’s nowhere you couldn’t go if you were truly motivated. Maybe it makes Dean feel big, less afraid. Maybe he just likes driving, the ease and smooth rhythm of it. Maybe it helps him forget.

            Maybe it’s because no one can see them.

            Either way, Dean’s hands find him whenever they’re in the car. Slides up his thigh or rests on his shoulder, fingers itching towards the back of his neck. They’ll talk too—mostly shop, but then Dean’s mouth will twist into a grin and his eyes will find Sam’s in the rearview and he’ll mutter all the things he’s going to do to him as soon as they pull over. Sam remembers the first time they fucked in the Impala, crammed into the backseat, muscles cramped and windows fogged. He’d nearly pulled his back. They’d both been sore for days.

            Sam is hard just thinking about it.

            Dean must notice, because he eases them onto the shoulder. It’s a barren stretch of highway, nothing but corn and the cloudless sky. Dean saunters out, disappears just beyond the edge of the stalks. Sam gets out, stretches, listen to Dean pissing. When he comes back, his pants are still unzipped, his limp dick flopping over the lip of his boxers.

            “You hungry, Sammy?”

            Sam should quip, make some snide comeback, but he drops to his knees and grabs his brother’s hips without a word. Sam has lived a life deprived too long to question miracles. Dean fills his mouth, the cheap scent of motel soap still trapped in the dark curls around the base of his cock. Sam lets him set the pace, head pressed against the side of the Impala. Dean fucks his mouth, the roll of his hips pushing the head to the back of Sam’s throat. Sam hurries his own pants down, fists his cock, beats it furiously. He comes, spilling onto the dry earth, seconds before Dean. He licks his lips while Dean tucks himself back into his pants and does up his zipper. He grins around a mouth full of canary.

            Dean keeps a hand on his knee all the way to Mississippi. Sam follows the signs, notes the mile markers, waits him out. It’s not a sixth-sense, more a matter of geography. An overwhelming presence of urbanization, rising like a wave on the horizon. They race into storm clouds. Normally they’re about fifty miles out when it hits. When Dean pulls away, grips the wheel with two hands. When that mask of indifference slips over his face, when his eyes start to wander anywhere but Sam. Distance, an uncrossable chasm, opens between them; they are suddenly miles apart, sitting in the same car. Dean will not touch him in public, might not touch him for days, and then only locked away in their room. The snig of the lock still makes Sam’s knees go weak and his dick plump up.

            Except this time, the _Welcome to Biloxi_ road sign whips past and Dean’s still got a hand on Sam’s thigh. His thumb rubs at the seam of his jean, absentminded, like it’s habit. Then they’re cruising through the city center with Dean’s hand still there. Only when they pull into the motel parking lot— _Jubilee Inn, free Wi-Fi and heated pool_ —only when Dean cuts the engine, flashes him a smile and gives him a final squeeze, does he pull his hand back to open the door and step out into the humid air of the evening.

            It takes a second for Sam to follow. He walks in a daze, barely catching his tossed bag. He can’t help but grin and he feels silly, but he can’t pull his mouth into a frown, not when his eyes keep darting to Dean as they walk up to reception. A strange lightness lifts his heart and his belly feels oddly empty and full at the same time. He fumbles with his wallet while Dean fingers through a pamphlet display.

            “Can I help you boys?” Her name is Flo, middle-aged with a cotton-ball tuff of copper hair atop a nondescript if not unattractive face. “Checking in?”

            “Yes, sorry, we don’t have a reservation.” Sam slides the credit card and corresponding ID across the counter. “Do you have anything available?”

            “Oh sure, honey, we’ve got lots of room, what with the off-season.” She taps a few keys on the computer and grants him a yellow-pearly smile. “Will you be wanting two rooms?”

            “One’s fine.” Sam licks his lips, darts a glance at Dean, who’s still absorbed in a brochure for a local gator farm. He grips the swell of courage building in his chest, uses it to force the words out. “One bed, please. A king, if it’s available.”

            Sam hears the brochure rack fall over, sees Dean scramble to upright it. Flo makes a surprised little sound, tells him not to worry about it.

            “Actually, uh, two beds would be better.” Dean hands her the shuffled literature and offers an apologetic smile. Sam bores a hole in the side of his head, but Dean pointedly holds Flo’s gaze.

            “I have a couple of queens. Is that alright?”

“Great.” Sam picks up his bag and hefts it onto his shoulder. “Couple of queens for a couple of queens.” He stalks out of the lobby, waits in the parking lot for Dean to finish up. He follows him around the building to their room.

            They don’t speak.

            Dean works the key into the lock, drops his bag on the farthest bed, waits for Sam to close the door before he rounds on him, pushing him back against the wall. “What the fuck was all that crap about, huh? One bed?” Dean isn’t shouting, which is what worries Sam. His quiet anger, the type that seethes below the surface and sharpens itself into a knife, is worse by far. But Sam is angry too, with Dean, yes, and with himself for believing, for hoping. _Foolish boy_. He pushes Dean back, draws himself up, remembers how much taller than his brother he is now.

            “Yeah, and? Why are we paying for an extra bed anyway, huh? I know the money’s not ours, but that doesn’t mean we’ve got to blow it all. Why not be smart with it? Make it last a little.” This, of course, is not why he did it, but it’s believable, and Sam wants so desperately believe.

            “What and have little miss small town think we’re a couple of fags, shacking up for a weekend by the beach?” Dean laughs a joyless laugh. “No thank you.”

            “And so what if she does, Dean? I mean, shit, we are a couple of—”

            “ _No_.” Dean’s in his face, half-raised to his tiptoes, finger pointed right under Sam’s nose. “This isn’t—we aren’t—that’s not what this is. You understand me?” Sam notices the green of Dean’s eyes, how verdant they are. Like a forest on fire.

            “Then what the fuck is this, Dean? Huh? What do you call getting fucked in the ass by your brother—”

            “Will you keep your fucking voice down?” Dean hisses. His teeth are on edge, a deep crease in his forehead dividing his face in two. “You want the whole fucking block to hear you?”

            “Didn’t seem to mind who heard us last night.” Sam feels drunk. Dean backs away, turns around, hands over his ears like he’s fucking twelve and Sam’s about to spoil the end of Lord of the Rings. The room sways when Sam follows, hounding him, and his voice is loud, even to his own ears. “No you didn’t give two _shits_ who heard you. _Come on, Sammy, fuck me, oh yeah, just like that_. Isn’t that what you said, Dean? Well, isn’t it? Begging your big ‘ol _fag_ of a brother to fuck you in the—”

            He wasn’t expecting Dean to punch him. His fist comes out of nowhere, Dean spinning on his back heel, putting his hip into it. His knuckles burst against Sam’s jaw. He sprawls back into the wall, slides down. His head spins, and when he looks up at Dean, wide-legged and heaving, he half expects to see little blue birds. Sam touches the tender flesh of his cheek. The copper taste of blood spills onto his tongue.

            Dean’s fist is still raised. He takes a step towards Sam, just one. Sam flinches, brings an elbow up to shield his face. Shuts his eyes. Nothing happens. He hears Dean’s keys jingle as he scoops them up. Listens to the door open and slam shut.

            Sam sits there, letting his heart slow down and his breathing even out. He tests his jaw, winces at the twinge whenever he opens his mouth too wide. He cradles his knees in his arms.

            His wrist suddenly, inexplicably, aches.

           

 

 


	2. End of His Triumph

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.  
It’s the same when love comes to an end,  
or the marriage fails and people say  
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody  
said it would never work. That she was  
old enough to know better. But anything  
worth doing is worth doing badly.  
Like being there by that summer ocean  
on the other side of the island while  
love was fading out of her, the stars  
burning so extravagantly those nights that  
anyone could tell you they would never last.  
Every morning she was asleep in my bed  
like a visitation, the gentleness in her  
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.  
Each afternoon I watched her coming back  
through the hot stony field after swimming,  
the sea light behind her and the huge sky  
on the other side of that. Listened to her  
while we ate lunch. How can they say  
the marriage failed? Like the people who  
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)  
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.  
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,  
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

**Jack Gilbert, _Failing and Flying_**

****

            The summer before Sam moved to Stanford, Dad dropped them off in a cabin in the foothills of the Appalachians. He’d been hunting a wendigo off a tip from Bobby, and had tracked it halfway through the Carolinas. It’d finally holed up a couple weeks hike into the mountains.

            Dean had been adamant about joining, Sam less so. For reasons known only to him, John had refused to take the boys with him. He cited the rough terrain, the lethal nature of his prey, the normal things a parent should consider when thinking of the safety of his children. But theirs was a family as far removed from normal as one could be. Sam suspected Dad worried he’d slow them down. Maybe he just wanted a little time alone.

            Sam could relate—a life spread between the back seat of a car and a series of interchangeable motel rooms bred a certain desire for locked doors and silence. But as John clapped them both on the shoulder, telling them if he wasn’t back in five weeks he was most certainly dead and they should call Bobby since _he’ll know what to do_ , his eyes lingered on their faces, just a second too long, just enough for Sam to notice, and he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was afraid for them after all.

            Dean grumbled as the car rumbled, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. Sam turned to take in what would pass as their home for the next month. The shack—for that’s what it was, handmade and wooden and nearly half a century old—squatted low to the ground, tin roof suitable for the humid swelters of summer, but ill-equipped for anything colder than September. A single door led into the combined living room and kitchen, a shift from wood floor to tiles the only demarcation. Two Spartan bedrooms sat at the back, sharing a wall, and a bathroom. The furnishings were modest at best: an unstocked fridge, a stove top and oven, a battered couch, a single table with three chairs.

            “In case we entertain,” Sam joked, but Dean, who’d thrown himself on the couch, was too deep in a sulk for humor to reach him. Sam inspected the bedrooms. He found little difference between them—each boasted a twin mattress and nothing else. The beds, placed in the middle of each room, seemed ritualistic, the negative space, of which there was ample, imbued with an unnamed power that both unsettled and excited Sam. At least they had windows, two each on adjoining walls. Sam forced them open and felt a cool breeze waft through what he had already begun to think of as his bedroom. He inhaled the smell of pines.

            “You calling dibs?” Dean leaned against the doorframe. Sam pretended he hadn’t been startled and shut one of the windows.

            “Yeah, I guess. They’re pretty much the same.”

            Dean disappeared for a moment. Sam heard him walking around the other room.

            “I think your room’s bigger,” he said, voicing coming through the wall. He reappeared in the doorway. “Switch with me.”

            “What? Dude, no.” Sam sat down on the edge of his bed. He pulled his duffel bag closer.

            “Come on, switch with me. I need the extra space.”

            “For what?”

            “In case I bring a girl back.”

            The smile slid off Sam’s face as his eyes lowered away from Dean’s smile. Something inside him twisted. He felt queasy. He stood and shouldered his bag.

            “Sure. Whatever.”

            Dean whooped and hollered, dragging in his own bag from the living room. Sam, one room over, sunk down onto the mattress. It looked no bigger to him. He sat numbly, duffel clutched in his lap, and told himself it was the dust that made his eyes water. The rap of knuckles on his door lifted his head.

            “What do you say we head into town, pick up some supplies?” The cabin came with a rusted pick-up and enough gas for the occasional trip into town forty-five minutes away. Dean twirled the keys on his finger and grinned.

            “No thanks.” Sam stood and stretched, moving to open his windows. “I think I’ll stay and unpack, maybe tidy the place up a bit.” Dean said nothing, but the twirling stopped. Sam did not turn around to see his brother’s disappointment, afraid it would not be there.

            “Suit yourself.”

            Sam listened to him leave, listened for the screen door to clack shut, the engine to sputter to life and fade off into the distance. When the gentle hum of cicadas was all he could hear he allowed himself to breathe once more.

            The tears came unbidden, two wet streaks down his cheeks while he stood staring out at the thick of trees that surrounded him. He took a shaky breath and blew it out past his lips. Wiped his face with the back of his hand, sniffed, and pulled himself together.

            He took stock of what all they had, little though it was. A couple frying pans under the sink, a handful of chipped dishes and smudged glasses. He turned on the faucet, which spat out brown murk. He ran it till the water came out clear. Without soap he could not do a proper wash, but he rinsed everything as best he could. He opened the windows and propped open the door to let in some fresh air. Dust caught the light, so many golden specks slowly floating to the ground.

            He found two sets of sheets in a linen closet, moth-eaten and stale. He shook them out and made the beds, tucking the covers in tight. He tested the lights, found all but one working. He busied himself, so as not to think of Dean, driving alone down mountain roads, or strolling into the first bar in town, some girl hanging off his arm.

            Because try as he might to deny it, to bury it beneath sullen silences and teenaged angst, the fact of the matter was that Sam was in love. Insanely in love, that singular, white-hot, earth-stopping love that can only take root in the rich black soil of an eighteen year old heart.

            With Dean.

            Who could say when it began? Sam doubted a time when he had not been in love with Dean. His realization was not a genesis of affection but simply the naming of it, the attaching of a label, a terminology. Their father, ever the pragmatic, had raised them without religion and only the barest bones of a moral education. As such the concept of sin was a stranger to him, something encountered only through sporadic socialization and infrequent contact with the larger world. Sam Winchester did not fear God simply because God was inconceivable to him.

            His was a life of evil encountered and conquered, not one of lofty goodness and mysterious ways. It was not hell he worried about when he lay awake at night, feverish with thoughts of his brother beside him, atop him, inside him. It was rejection, Dean’s, that haunted his nightmares. The fear of being turned out, scorned, pushed away, by the only man he’d ever loved, by the only person he respected. Sam did not have to be a churchgoer to understand that fucking your brother was frowned upon, and Dean had never shown more than a perfunctory interest in other men, and only then as competition. Dean’s was not a heart bent towards hate, but Sam had heard him, when they were younger, laughing with other boys, deriding some classmate for his love of art, his soft-spoken manner, his lisp. It was from Dean’s lips Sam had first heard the word: _fag_. When the boys had turned their attention to Sam—quiet, bookish Sam, with his too-long hair, all legs and brooding—Dean’s protective nature, his need to keep his brother safe, overrode any innate need to be accepted and liked. But a split lip or a black eye could not erase his words. Even now Dean eyed the men who approached him, their swinging hips and loud voices, with apprehension, a tightness to his smile when he turned them away.

            So Sam did his best to ignore the way his heart fluttered when Dean flashed him a green-eyed grin, when his hand lingered on Sam’s arm, the softness of his face when he slept. He built walls between them, distanced himself from the only friend he’d ever had. Their conversations—once endless and rambling, dragging on long into the night, voices lowered in the quiet of their shared beds so as to not wake their father sleeping a few feet away, or huddled together in the backseat while America zipped past and the only the stars bore witness—had grown fickle and sparse, ending more often than not in shouts or sullen silences. Desperate not to love his brother, Sam had become a stranger to Dean and to himself, only to find that _not_ loving him was as impossible as stopping the sunrise. Only a character of myth, some Hercules or Adonis, could have possibly done it, and Sam, despite the storied circumstances of his youth, was wretchedly human.

            If he could not stop himself from loving Dean, he could at least prevent Dean from ever learning the truth behind his lingering stare whenever Sam thought he wasn’t looking. He packaged his love away, folding it like the notes he saw children pass to each other in class. He tucked it deep inside himself, built a shelter around it, to visit when the storms of life battered and bruised him till he feared he’d break. Always, always, the soft ache of Dean soothed away his other pains till all that remained was his yearning.

            At nights he worried he’d grow sick from it, that his soul—if such a thing existed—would shrivel up and die, starved for that which it had denied itself. At times it physically _hurt_ to look at Dean, to see his smile turned, not towards Sam, but to some waif of a thing, pretty and forgettable. Knowing Dean would slip out of bed when he thought everyone else was asleep, only to return with the gray light of dawn smelling of drugstore perfume and sex. Sam would wrap the sheets tight around himself, a sob clawing up the back of his throat, and remind himself that this, all this, was temporary. That he was young and foolish and, yes, in love, but that time, that great balm of all things, would sooth the ache, would carry it away like leaves on a river. That if he pushed his feelings down deep enough, he too could forget them, and in forgetting they would fade away and cease to be.

            But love, like a cough, would inevitably make itself known. Even a little cough. Even a little love.

            Sam lay back on the bed and fished a book of poetry out of his duffel. The creased spine, tortured by frequent readings and long stretches of being stuffed at the bottom of his bag, held only a semblance of rigidity, the front and back almost able to touch if Sam bent the book enough. He’d stolen it from a library in Oklahoma. Technically he’d checked it out, all above the board, his real name on the library card and everything, but he’d done so knowing they would leave in two days and had no intention of returning it. It was an anthology, a collection of voices that spoke to him of love and longing and truth. He escaped between the verses, marveled at the profound beauty contained within. While he read he believed, not necessarily in the cessation of his own suffering, but in the value of it.

            If poets could spin gold from tears, he was convinced he do the same.

 

            Sam awoke when the front door slammed shut. He heard the heavy footfalls of Dean’s boots on the hardwood, the crinkle of bags set down on the counter. Sam sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. A dried line of drool, caked on his cheek, fouled the taste in his mouth. Dean rapped a knuckle, once, before poking his head inside.

            “Wakey, wakey, princess. You hungry?”

            “Starved.”

            Cold cuts, canned goods, and other edibles littered the countertops. Sam helped put things away while Dean filled a pot with water and set it to boil. Neither spoke as they worked—Dean slicing open the package of hotdogs and plopping them into the simmering pot, Sam balling up plastic bags and tucking them under the sink. Sam arranged buns on plates, setting up a line of condiments on the table.

            “So, what’s the town like?” He forced his tone to be casual, voice light and unaffected, but he did not turn to look at Dean when he asked, afraid the tension in his jaw would betray him.

            Dean blew a raspberry and nudged the hotdogs with a fork. “More like a retirement home. I didn’t see a single person under sixty. They don’t even have a decent bar.”

            Sam leaned a hand on the table, weak with relief. He brought the plates to the stove and Dean speared the hotdogs, serving them into buns. Sam set their food down on the floor by the couch, while Dean opened a couple beers. Sam clinked his bottle to Dean’s and downed a gulp.

            They ate in silence, mechanical chewing and perfunctory sips the only break in the quiet. Sam stole glances from beneath the veil of his bangs while Dean stared blankly ahead, eating like a man starved, stuffing half a hotdog into his mouth with each bite. He drank slower, almost savoring his beer. Sam figured he simply did not relish another hour and a half drive to restock.

            “Five weeks. _Fuck_. What the fuck are we supposed to do for five fucking weeks in the middle of nowhere?” Dean leaned back against the couch, draining the dregs of his beer.

            Sam shrugged, sopping up a bit of spilled mustard with a hunk of bun. “I could lend you some books if you want.”

            Dean kicked his knee. “What, so I can turn into a bookworm like you? No thanks.” Dean hefted himself up off the couch. Sam did not allow his eyes to follow him, to linger on the sway of his hip or the swell of his ass. He heard the fridge open and the small _clink_ of a bottle cap hitting the counter. “I mean if there were a couple of girls around, fine. But there’s _no one_.” Dean drank and sighed. “I’m gonna go fucking crazy.”

            Sam turned to look at him. Dean met his eyes and his gaze held some entreating plea, some unasked question. It stunned him, this earnestness, this seeming vulnerability. Sam’s mouth fell open but no words tumbled forth. He shrugged and looked away, turned his face down to his hands, cradled in his lap. He was embarrassed by his own inadequacy, by his inability to give Dean what he needed, whatever that may be.

            “Do you want to play some cards?” Sam asked just to end the silence. They played till well past midnight. Gin and Egyptian Rat Screw and Poker. They played for sugar packets and bottle caps, for keeps and for laughs. They worked their way through the beer, and Sam felt his head grow dangerously light. He worried he’d float right out of his seat, which is why he gripped Dean’s arm so tightly when they laughed, when they clung to each other in the dim light of the bare bulb dangling over their heads.

            When they tired of playing they talked. Of this and that and the other, nothing of importance yet every sentence felt like life or death. They had, in the twilight hours, urged by drink, rediscovered the fraternal ease with which they once communicated. Dean, hands tracing a waistline in air, recounted tales of conquest across the lower forty eight, and Sam, in lieu of seething with jealousy, imagined himself in these women’s places—his hips the ones roughly grabbed, his back pressed against a bathroom stall, his lips kissed red and raw. Sam tried to explain the books he’d been reading, the poetry that had captured him, transported him, and although he listened, Dean made light of the images, scoffed at the metaphors.

            “All that,” Dean motioned in the air with an empty bottle, “is bullshit. It ain’t real.”

            “Oh yeah?” Sam knew he was shouting, red-faced and bug-eyed, but so was Dean. “So what’s real then?”

            Something pierced the fog of Dean’s inebriation. He set down his beer and leaned forward, elbows on the table. He cupped the back of Sam’s head and pulled him close so their faces hovered an inch apart. He jabbed a finger at Sam’s chest, then his own.

            “This,” he said, voice low and rough from drink. “Us. Family. That’s all that’s real.” He let Sam go and sank back into his own chair.

            For a long time they looked at each other without speaking. Sam sat, half-paralyzed, his head ducked down, chin tucked against his chest. Shadows couched Dean’s eyes in darkness, and he grew so still Sam wondered if he’d fallen asleep, when all of a sudden Dean stood, swaying a little on his feet.

            “I’mma go to bed.” Dean walked past him, ruffling his hair. “Night, Sammy.”

            Sam lay awake for hours, straining to listen to Dean’s tired breath through the walls. He rubbed himself raw, remembering the strength of that hand on the back of his head, pulling him forward, pulling him closer, pulling him towards Dean.

 

            They fell into an easy rhythm. He awoke to the smell and sizzle of bacon. Sam made coffee while Dean served their breakfast. They ate, not at their lone table, but sprawled out on the couch, legs overlapping. They did not talk so much as talk _around_ —Dad’s hunt, its progress, guesses as to their next inevitable transplant. They kept their tone light, neither wanting to seem overly invested. Sam washed up, rinsing the dishes in the sink while Dean finished the last of the coffee.

            In the late morning, before the sun rose to its zenith and scorched the leaves off the trees, Dean would take a wrench to the rusted pick-up, tinkering under the hood.

            “That thing’s beyond saving, Dean.” Despite his protests, Dean persisted. He needed something to occupy his hands. The hours of their days piled up till Dean thought he would drown in them, but Sam found comfort in the unoccupied time. He spent his days reading, stretched out on his bed, or exploring the surrounding woods. He discovered a stream half a mile into the trees, told Dean about it over dinner that night. He’d grunted around a mouthful of canned beans.

            After that first night, neither of them mentioned their conversation. Dean pretended it had faded beyond the fogged veil of forgetting, and Sam did not press. Yet he tugged himself off under the spray of the shower, lip bitten red to stop from moaning. Though he denied it, a change had come over Dean. Sam would often find him staring off into space, a screwdriver or empty bottle in his hand. As soon as he saw Sam he’d make like he had some important work to do, that Sam had somehow interrupted him and he had _to get back to it, Sammy_. Other times he felt Dean’s eyes linger, searching. He worried what Dean would find if he wormed his way in.

            Still, Sam took pleasure in the simple domesticity of it. Except for breakfast, Sam did most of the cooking. When Dean finished a beer— _hafta make another supply run soon_ —Sam was quick to open another. He imagined this as their life, isolated from the world with only the other for company. He imagined Dean coming home from some mundane job, working in a garage or record store, to find dinner spread out on the table, and Sam waiting, obedient as a dog or wife.

            As the week wore on, summer sweltered and the temperature rose. The air grew thick and humid. Sweat clung to them, shirts soaked through by noon. They propped opene the windows and doors, but the limp breeze did little to cool them, only moved the air around. If Sam laid very still, book in hand, it was almost bearable, but Dean grew short-tempered and moody. He grumbled and wiped his face, complaining about _this goddamn heat_ and _this fucking no-A/C-good-for-nothing-cabin_.

            “You want some lunch?” Sam called from his bedroom. He lifted his head, peered through the open door at the couch. Dean raised a desultory hand, a weak affirmation that, yes, he could eat.

            Sam got out the butter and cheese, took the bread out of the cabinet. He buttered the skillet and set it on the stove. It sizzled and popped as he piled slices of cheddar between two pieces of white bread.

            “Maybe we could go swimming after lunch,” Said Sam, lifting the sandwiches, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. The heat rolling off the open flame made the air shimmer. “There’s that stream I told you about. Might be good to cool off a bit.”

            Dean grumbled something approaching a _yeah, sure_ , and Sam allowed himself a private smile. A bubble of butter burst, splashing the webbing between his thumb and forefinger when he slid the spatula under one of the grilled cheeses. He swore and dropped the skillet, clutching his hand. The skin stung and discolored to an angry red.

            Dean shot up from the couch, hopping over it to rush to Sam’s side. “What happened? Sammy, what’d you do?”

            “Nothing, I—” Sam turned on the faucet and put his hand under the water. “It’s stupid, I burned myself cooking. I’m fine.”

            “Bullshit, let me see.” Dean grabbed his wrist and held it up to the light. A feeling like needles being pushed under his skin spread over the back of Sam’s hand. “Jesus, Sam, you’d burn the house down if I weren’t here to look after you.”

            “Really, it’s fine, let me cool it off.”

            “Water ain’t gonna do shit. You gotta put spit on it.” Dean reached over and shut off the tap. He clicked the stove top off and set the pan down on a hot plate.

            “Spit? Dean, I’m not twelve, I’m not going to fall for some stupid prank.”

            “It’s not a prank, dummy. It’s like, you know, biology. Some enzyme in the saliva sooths burns. Man, don’t you read books? Shouldn’t you know this shit?” Sam eyed him with suspicion. His fingers inched towards the faucet. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Dean grabbed Sam’s hand and brought it to his mouth. He placed his lips over the burn and laved his tongue around it.

            Sam went rigid, blood torn between racing to his face or down to his crotch. Dean swiped his tongue over and over the red swell of skin, coating it with spit. Sam felt on fire, every nerve super charged. Dean curved his tongue along the base knuckle of Sam’s thumb, along the thin membrane connecting it to his pointer finger. Sam didn’t dare breathe, mouth hanging open in rapt devotion. Dean pulled his mouth away, held Sam’s wrist for a second before letting it drop back down by his side. He would not meet Sam’s eyes.

            “Does, uh, did that help? Does it feel better?”

            Sam took too long to answer. He felt drunk, head swimming and tongue swollen. “Yeah,” he croaked, voice raw and rough, “uh, yeah. Thanks, Dean.”

            They salvaged the grilled cheeses, only slightly burnt, and ate in silence. Their chewing seemed to rumble in the quiet heat of midday. Sam could not stop his eyes from darting to the curve of Dean’s neck, the hunch of his shoulders. They sat on the couch, upright this time, feet planted on the floor, pressed to either ends. When Sam reached for Dean’s empty plate, he nearly flinched. He laughed, high and nervous, dishes clattering into the sink.

            “So, uh, that stream...” Sam turned down the water pressure to better hear Dean. He turned to look back at him over his shoulder. Dean, still sitting, faced the opposite wall, speaking out the side of his mouth. “You still want to? I mean, it’s hot as hell so why don’t we. You know?”

            Sam smiled till his face hurt.

 

            Sam grabbed a couple water bottles and tossed them, along with a few beers, into a plastic bag. He led the way through the bush, brambles nipping at their legs as they waded through the thicket. The babble of water grew louder, faint at first, barely audible above the hum of cicadas, until it was a gentle roar at their feet. Dean let out a long whistle.

            “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful in my _life_.” He shed his shirt, working at the button of his shorts. Sam turned away and busied himself with his own clothes.

            “Even that waitress in Tacoma?” Sam lifted his head at the sound of a splash and glimpsed the round moon of Dean’s ass dip below the surface. Dean threw his head back and spread his arms, smile kicking off the sides of his face.

            “Sammy, she had nothing on this.”

            Dean sunk down below the surface. Sam hurried out of his pants and dashed into the water. A shiver ran up his legs as he submerged in the pleasant coolness. Dean surged to the surface beside him, a wave of water splashing his face and chest.

            “Hey!” Sam wiped the water from his face.

             “Aw, come on, Sammy. Worried you’re gonna melt?” Sam ignored the rivulets cascading down Dean’s chest, ignored the droplets that clung to his lashes, ignored the way his eyes swam with the dappled light bouncing off the stream. Sam cupped a handful of water and tossed it in Dean’s face. “Oh, it is _on_.”

            They wrestled and splashed, their delighted shrieks echoing amongst the treetops. Dean scooped Sam up into his arms and tossed him overhead into the water. Sam scampered up Dean’s back and pushed his head underwater. They fought until exhaustion overtook them, muscles aching and breath short. Sam waded to the shore and grabbed them each something to drink.

            In the middle of the stream a flat rock jutted up, a plateau above the current. Dean sprawled across it, head pillowed on his arms, chest and face turned towards the sun. Sam waded over to him, resting his upper body on the rock beside him. He set the beer against Dean’s elbow, cracked open his water bottle, and drank deep.

            His eyes dragged up Dean’s legs, the dark hairs matted against his skin, up past the muscular swell of his thighs. His gaze alighted on the dark mass of curls at the base of his cock, glistening in the sunlight. Sam had seen his brother naked countless times before. Theirs was not a life built for privacy. Sam marked his youth with furtive glances in shared bathrooms, with lingering looks as Dean toweled off after a shower. They dressed and undressed together, untrained in shame or timidity. But seldom was Sam able to drink his fill of Dean, to allow his eyes to sketch the dusting of freckles on his shoulders, to trace the line of his back down to the firm mounds of his ass. Dean _hmm_ ed and sipped from his beer without opening his eyes. His dick gave a halfhearted twitch.

            Sam felt his blood stir. Dean breathed slow and easy, the rise and fall of his chest gentle as the water lapping at Sam’s waist. Sam licked his lips and watched the water evaporate from the underside of Dean’s arms. The sun beat down upon them; the top of Sam’s head felt hot, his hair nearly dry. He finished the last of his water, crushed the bottle, and tossed it onto the shore. Dean didn’t stir.

            He let his hand rest on Dean’s knee, thumb ghosting over the knob of bone. They were strangers to touch, he and Dean. Whatever affection had once lived in John Winchester’s heart had died along with his wife. He did not hug his children, did not hold or coddle them, only aware of their bodies when their lives were in danger, and even then his interests were pragmatic— _stop the bleeding, cauterize the wound, bind it up, back on your feet_. For them, touch was a question of violence, or else a reaction to it. How to inflict the most damage, while avoiding the brunt of it yourself. Sam’s body was a stranger to gentleness.

            Except with Dean.

            Unspoken, they gravitated towards each other, huddling together in the back seat, finding the other in the dead of the night, curling around the other’s sleeping form. Perhaps that is why Sam loved him—he had known no sweetness in his life save from Dean. Sam had pushed him away as he grew older, as his limbs elongated, as his chest and shoulders broadened and he towered over Dean. He’d claimed embarrassment, said he was _too old for that kiddy crap_ , but it was fear. Fear his own body would betray him, would give him away beneath Dean’s touch. Not a day went by he did not yearn for it, for a return to simple intimacy, to Dean’s arms wrapped around him in the night.

            Sam’s head swam, dizzy from the heat. His hand travelled up Dean’s thigh, fingers ghosting over the hairs, gone stiff in the sun. He pressed his palm flat to the hard plain of Dean’s stomach. Dean shifted, readjusted his head, but kept his eyes shut. The tip of Sam’s finger toyed with a curl at the edge of his crotch. The sound of the water faded away; Sam could hear nothing over the pounding of his heart. He buried his nails in the dark forest of Dean’s pubic hair and watched his brother’s face, searching for a hint of something, anything.

            He wrapped his hand around the pliant length of Dean’s cock. Dean stirred, just barely, cheeks flushed with sun. His lips parted and he sucked in a sharp breath as Sam squeezed, began moving his hand. Dean’s dick quickly roused, thickening, filling, engorging with blood. Sam’s own cock bobbed in the water, straining, painfully hard. His pulse raced and his mouth went dry. He felt warm, too warm, and dizzy. He steadied himself against the rock with his free hand as he slowly jerked Dean off.

            Sam marveled at the heft of it, the weight and girth. He trembled at the thought of it inside him. He watched himself, fingers wrapped around his brother’s cock, as if from a distance, as if this were a movie. He could not believe what he was doing, that he was actually doing it. Part of him screamed to stop, to stop now, that some shred or semblance of normalcy between them could be preserved if only he stopped now.

            But he didn’t, he couldn’t, not when Dean arched his lower back up, tilting his hips so Sam’s hand could slide down to the base of his cock, grip, squeeze, and rise, twisting at the head.

            Dean came with a quiet grunt, spilling over Sam’s fingers and onto his belly. It felt warm and tacky against his palm. Sam wanted nothing more than to lift his hand to his mouth, to lick it clean and discover, finally, the secret taste of his brother. Instead he watched Dean, the sharp crest and dive of his chest, the tension in his clenched jaw until his eyes opened with a blink. He stared at the sky, the green of his eyes verdant as a forest in bloom.

            Dean sat up, dipping his legs into the water. Sam held his breath—he dared not speak. Dean washed himself off, his back to Sam. He strode out of the water and dressed, clothes clinging to his damp skin. He walked away without a word.

            Sam watched him go until tears blurred the world beyond recognition.


	3. Long Lost

            Sam wakes late, groggy, his head cotton-filled. He rolls over and winces as his tender jaw sinks into the pillow. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, combs out the tangles. He blinks at the deflated emptiness of Dean’s bed. The hook next to his jacket is empty, but the car keys still sit in the enamel bowl next to the door.

            He showers, staying under the spray till he prunes and his skin colors a blotchy red. He wipes a hand across the mirror, clearing away the condensation. He tilts his face and examines the purple bruise blossoming across his cheek. He digs through his dopp kit, sees he’s out of Advil. He dresses and heads to the diner next door.

            Attached to their motel is the type of eatery most common in the wild stretches of the American interior, replete with vinyl seats, chrome accents, and a perpetual smell of grease. This particular iteration, aptly named _The Slop Trop_ , advertises an ‘All-American Smorgasbord’. Sam found the irony touching, though the joke had been lost on Dean when he’d pointed it out.

            Inside, Sam smells the sizzle of eggs cooked in too much butter and tastes the burnt coffee in the air. It’s nearly past ten, late for the breakfast crowd, and the diner is empty, save for an aging waitress, a tired fry cook, and Dean, hunched over in a booth by the corner.

            “Finally. Thought you’d sleep all day. Damn near ordered without you.”

            “Morning to you too, Dean.” Sam slides into the booth opposite his brother. Dean darts a glance, his eyes flicking from Sam’s bruise to his eyes and back, before dropping to the sports section of the Sun Herald. Sam waves to the waitress, orders a coffee and a bowl of yogurt and granola. Dean goes for the special. “You could have woken me, you know.”

            “What, and interrupt your beauty rest? Someone’s gotta do something about fixing all that ugly.” Dean flashes a grin that’s broken hearts in 30 of the continental 48, but Sam knows it’s an act. He’s playing for casual, going for the joke, but his heart’s not it in. Sam reaches for the front page, flips to an article on A7, a follow-up to their missing person.

_Authorities are still searching for Bill Halloway, who went missing last Tuesday. Bill reportedly went out for a jog and never returned home. Beloved by his community, Bill is an active member in the Biloxi Lutheran Youth Ministry. His sister, Karen, is offering a reward for any information relating to her brother’s disappearance, and urges those willing to join the on-going search party._

            “Anything?” Dean asks through a mouthful of eggs.

            Sam folds the paper back and slides it across to Dean. “Nothing much. Well loved, community in mourning, the usual pleas for any and all information as to his whereabouts.” Sam sips his coffee and his face wrinkles at the taste. He peels open two creamers and dumps them inside, stirring in a hardy dose of sugar. “Still, probably best to start at his house. Says here his sister is organizing a search party, maybe she could tell us something useful.”

            Dean grunts an affirmative, licking a line of yolk off his finger. For a second his eye finds Sam, but he turns away. Sam finishes the last of his granola. They eat mostly in silence, the diner too devoid of casual background conversation for them to dare airing plans out in the open. The clink and scrape of cutlery against dishes grates on Sam’s nerves. The ache in his jaw migrates north, squats just behind his eyes and pushes at his forehead. He doesn’t finish his coffee.

Beneath the table, Dean saddles his leg up against Sam’s. Their calves brush once, twice, and Sam knows it’s no accident. Dean is focused on his food, more inhaling it than chewing, eyes drifting aimless over the paper blanketing the table. He lets his leg rest against Sam’s, slides his boot against his sneaker.

            “I’m going to settle up. Meet you back at the room, okay?” Sam doesn’t let himself look back as he walks to the register, fishing a twenty out of his wallet and telling Dolores to keep the change. He doesn’t see the flicker across Dean’s eye, doesn’t see him set down his fork, does not see his half-eaten plate pushed aside as he walks out of the diner and into the blinding light of day.

           

            They decide FBI is probably their safest bet. Mr. Halloway had yet to be declared officially dead, so why would the insurance company send them knocking? They maybe could have swung priests, but the article had failed to make mention of any religious devotion, and Sam argued against the gamble.

            They change into their suits, curtains drawn against the noonday sun. Dean shuffles through a selection of badges, hands Sam one with the name Steve Perry, takes John Wetton for himself.

            “Really?” Sam eyes Dean’s reflection in the mirror. He undoes the knot of his tie and starts again.

            “What? You love Journey.” Dean checks and rechecks his gun, tucks it into his holster. “Here,” he says, coming up behind Sam, “let me.” His fingers fly with fluid efficiency, knotting the silk snug against Sam’s throat. His hands press against Sam’s chest; his back bumps into the mirror. Suddenly, Sam can smell Dean’s cologne, can feel the heat rolling off him. The air crackles with charge. Color rushes up Sam’s neck as Dean tugs his tie, pulling him down. He rises to the balls of his feet. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Sam’s mouth, “I shouldn’t—it was wrong to hit you. I’m sorry...”

            Sam tastes mint on Dean’s breath, cheap dollar store toothpaste. He lets himself be kissed, too overwhelmed to resist, to do anything but melt into Dean’s mouth. This is relatively new, even for them. It still catches Sam unawares, ever since that first time, when Dean, stone cold sober, had pushed him up against the bricks behind the RoadHouse and kissed him, really kissed him.

Sam opens wider and his jaw twinges in pain, a sharp stab up into his skull. He eases Dean back with hands on his hips. “We should, uh, get going. You know, before too many well-wishers come to pay their respects.”

            They listen to Aerosmith on the drive over. Dean makes a show of singing along, strumming the air at red lights. Sam does his best to act unimpressed, and for the most part it works. He is careful not to smile too wide—his jaw aches when it moves. The driveway is full by the time they arrive, so they park on the street. Dean checks his gun one last time before they walk up to the front door and knock. An auburn-haired woman in her fifties opens the door for them. “

            Hello? Have you come to help with the search party?” Her eyes flit between them. Sam feels her staring at the side of his face.

            “No, ma’am. I’m Agent Wetton, this is Agent Perry. We’re here to investigate your brother’s disappearance. Do you mind if we come in?”

            She leads them into the parlor. Sam hears voices from the kitchen. Mrs. Wilcox shuts the joining door and the sound grows muffled, like he’s put on headphones.

            “Please,” she says, gesturing to the couch, “sit down. Can I get you anything?”

            “No, thank you.” Dean sits next to Sam. Their knees brush when they settle, but Sam pulls away, snug against the opposite arm. Dean pretends not to notice. “You’re Mr. Halloway’s sister, is that right?”

            She nods, sitting down in an armchair opposite them. It’s overlarge, and it diminishes her as she sits in it, seeming to swallow her into the plush leather. The lines around her eyes draw tight. She fishes a tissue out of her sleeve and dabs at her cheek.

            “Please, if you have bad news, just get it over with.”

            “No,” Sam hurries to correct. “There haven’t been any developments with your brother’s disappearance. That’s why we’ve been assigned to his case. We were hoping you could walk us through what happened.”

            “But I’ve already told the police—”

            “We know.” Dean flips open his notebook and wets the tip of his pencil on his tongue. “But our investigation is separate from the police’s, so we need our own version of your statement. Formalities, am I right?” Dean grants her a grin. “So when exactly did your brother go missing?”

            “Last week. We do dinner on Thursdays—have for years. We’d planned to meet at Intermezzio, the new Italian place down on Boulevard, but he never showed.”

            “This was Thursday?” Sam double-checks his notes. “But you didn’t file a missing persons until Sunday.”

            Mrs. Wilcox drops her eyes to her lap. Her frantic fingers gradually turn her tissue into confetti. She looks, not at them, but at the space above their heads when she answers. “We…we had a fight. It was my fault. I figured he was still mad at me. But when he never showed up for church, I knew something was wrong. I drove straight over and he, he was—” She runs a knuckle across her eye and smears a line of mascara.

            “It’s okay.” Sam moves to her side and lays a hand on her shoulder. She grips it briefly, gives it a grateful squeeze. “Just take your time.”

            “You said you and your brother had a fight?” Dean leans forward, elbows on knees. “About what?”

            Mrs. Wilcox, bless her, blushes, and offers an awkward smile to the both of them. Sam walks while she talks, moves about the room, looking for clues, anything of interest. “It was a…personal matter. Bill had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and I…objected to the way he’d ended things. Not that it was any of my business, but Bill’s my brother and I thought better of him. I mean, after twelve years, don’t you think a person deserves more than a note on the kitchen table?”

            “So, what, Bill up and left his wife without a word of warning?” Dean quirks an eyebrow, pencil suspended over paper.

            “Bill isn’t married,” Mrs. Wilcox corrects.

            “Bill’s gay.” Sam starts at the sudden _snap_ of Dean’s pencil.

            “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Wilcox says, “here let me—”

            “It’s fine,” Dean stands, scooping the broken halves into his hand, “really.”

            Sam, still standing by the mantle, photo in hand, points. “Is this your brother?” Mrs. Wilcox nods and takes the photo.

            “That’s Bill and Marcus last year in Turks and Caicos.” Her finger ghosts over Bill’s face, reverent and mournful. “They seemed so in love.”

            “What happened?” Sam takes the picture back, returns it to the mantle. He tries not to look at Dean, tries not to notice his discomfort, one crooked finger tugging at the knot of his tie.

            “Whatever happens to people in love? One day Bill just…couldn’t anymore, I guess. Said things had changed, that they were too difficult, that he had to get away.”

Sam’s mouth goes dry.

            “If you’ll excuse me,” Dean says, standing, “I’d love to ask the search party some questions. My partner will finish up with you.”

            The rest is routine— _any strange behaviors, no, any vivid dreams or visions, no_ —if questioning someone about ghosts could ever be routine. Sam thanks Mrs. Wilcox for her cooperation and the lemon squares, and promises to be in touch as soon as there’s a break in the case. He finds Dean waiting in the car, engine idle. The music is on, turned low, like the soundtrack to a TV show.

            “Anything?” Dean doesn’t turn to look at him as Sam settles in and buckles up.

            “Nothing to write home about.” They turn onto Main. “Still, it’s a bit odd, sudden disappearance, no sign of forced entry, no note.”

            “You think it’s up our alley?” Dean stops at a red light, and his eyes flick to Sam’s for just a moment, no longer than a heartbeat.

            “Maybe. Maybe not. Didn’t get anything off the EMF, but it’s still worth a little digging at the library.” Sam rubs at his jaw and winces. “Hey, you could turn into that CVS? My head’s killing me.”

            Dean looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. He slides into a parking spot by the entrance and lets the engine idle while Sam slips out. Top 40 is playing over the pharmacy’s speakers, and Sam beelines for the pain relievers. He snags a bottle of store brand ibuprofen.

            “Do you have a loyalty card?” The clerk asks while Sam fishes for his wallet.

            “Sorry? Oh, no, I—”

            “That’s alright.” The clerk, Tommy his nametag reads, scans his own card and offers Sam a warm smile. “It’s twenty cents less. Don’t tell my boss.”

            And despite himself Sam’s smiling back, taking his time counting out the change. “Your secret’s safe with me.” Tommy rings him up, bags the bottle, and hands Sam his receipt.

            “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.” Tommy looks down at his hands and Sam can’t help but notice the blush working its way across his cheeks. “Are you new in town?”

            “Just passing through. Working a case.” Which, Sam hates to admit, is damn near the truth. “Know any good pharmacies?”

            Tommy laughs and Sam joins him, shocked by his own boldness. “Sure, the Walgreen’s over on Spalding. Not the CVS though. I hear the guy who works there lets customers use his store loyalty card. But only if they’re handsome.”

            Now it’s Sam’s turn to blush and laugh and turn his gaze away. The store isn’t crowded, far from it, but nor is it deserted, and Sam feels emboldened by such brash affection. His mouth pulls up into a smile till his cheeks ache. “Well I’ll be sure to steer clear, I’d hate to contribute to any sort of criminal activity.”

            Tommy licks his lips and Sam can practically see the handcuffs jangling in his mind’s eye. “You better be careful, this is a pretty rough town. You might need a local to show you around, make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

            Sam huffs a surprised little laugh, because, really, who’d’ve thought (and in Missouri of all places)? He’s not sure what to say, what he wants to say. He licks his lips and tries to figure out the best wording to let him down gently, when a car horn blasts the quiet to a million tiny pieces. They both start, and Sam hurries to apologize.

            “My partner, he’s waiting in the car.”

            “Bit of a brute, huh?” Tommy’s scowl lessens, smooths out, but doesn’t completely disappear.

            “No, he’s…he’s sweet, really.” And Sam wants Tommy to believe him, wants to believe himself. He grabs the bag off the counter and smiles sadly. “Thanks for the scan. And the advice.”

 

            Dean barely waits for him to shut the door before he peels out of the parking lot. “What, you get lost or something?”

            “I was questioning the clerk about the disappearance.” The lie, unbidden, leaps to his lips. The ease with which it comes, with which he tells it, scares him.

            “And?”

            Sam shakes his head. “Nothing.”

            “Great. Just great. Nothing I love more than an afternoon stuck in some dusty ‘ol library.” Dean goes for gruff, but it’s for show, all bark, no bite. He claps a hand on Sam’s knee. “Wanna be my study buddy?” Dean’s thumb rubs at the inside of Sam’s thigh. Sam tucks his legs together, making like he needs to stretch out, and Dean’s hand falls away.

            “I figured you’d canvas the neighborhood a little, get a few more statements.” Sam watches the billboards zip past— _JESUS SAVES, Cracker Barrel next right 1mi, Ted’s Trucks_ —so he doesn’t see the light die in Dean’s eyes. “I can handle the research, if you want. Spare you that afternoon stuck in some dusty ‘ol library.”

            Dean’s quiet for a long time, but Sam doesn’t look at him, doesn’t lift his head off the glass. Sam thinks maybe he won’t answer, but then he does, voice quiet and small, more a boy’s than a man’s. “Sure thing, Sammy. Smart thinking.”

 

            Truth be told, Sam gets more done at the library than he would have if Dean had decided to join him, but he still feels a pang of guilt watching the Impala recede into the distance. The Biloxi branch is a far cry from some of the fancier institutions around Stanford, but at least it has two floors and a digital catalogue. He asks to be set up in a study room upstairs, and for microfilm newspapers from the last twenty years. It’s slow going, but Sam doesn’t mind the tedium—it grants him leave from his own head. Besides, he’d worked the system out years ago: scan the front page, then the obits. Any interesting deaths should be crosschecked with the paper from the day they’d died. It takes time, but it gets results.

            In all Sam finds four other disappearances, at least two of which followed shortly after a messy divorce. He looks up the next of kin, most of which had either died themselves or moved away, but an ex-husband still lives in town. Sam figures they can talk to him tomorrow.

            The light inches across the wall, growing slanted, coloring orange, as the afternoon winds into night. He rolls his neck and blinks the white spots from his eyes. He texts Dean to come pick him up and thanks the librarian for all her help. Sam waits in the parking lot, rolling his shoulders. He shucks off his jacket and notices with some displeasure the wet circles under his arms. His feet ache from too-tight shoes and his stomach grumbles in irritated protest. He can’t help but smile as familiar headlights wink at him from the looming dark.

            “Any luck?” Dean asks, sitting back in his seat from where he’d leaned across to open Sam’s door. He waits for Sam to get settled and buckled up before he eases back onto the street. He’s loosened his tie, top button undone, and Sam hungers over the flash of chest below his throat.

            “Yeah, actually, yeah.” Sam flashes the stack of photo copies he’d printed, newspaper articles mostly. “Seems like Bill Halloway wasn’t the first person to disappear under mysterious circumstances after a sudden breakup.”

            Dean _whoops_ and smacks a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “That’s my _boy_!” He squeezes and Sam leans into it, lets the hand stay there till Dean takes it away to make a turn. His eyes are tired from long hours squinting over newsprint, and the car smells like home: take out and motor oil and _Dean_. Sam tries to remember why he’d been upset and can’t.

            They decide to change out of their monkey suits before grabbing a bite to eat. Sam shucks off his shoes while Dean draws the curtains. He tugs off his socks and massages a swollen bunion. “These shoes are going to be the death of me.”

            “Aw, Sammy, you want me to kiss it better?”

Dean’s being an ass, Sam knows, and he’s halfway to a comeback when he looks up, sees Dean standing in front of the mirror in only his undershirt and boxers, pants around his ankles. His cheeks color and his heart does that funny little flutter it’s always done since the first time he saw Dean naked.

Dean catches him looking, grins around a mouthful of teeth and slinks over to the bed, knee sinking into the mattress. “See something you like, Sammy?”

            And he does, God, he does. Dean pushes him, and Sam lets himself fall back against the pillows, lets Dean work open the buttons of his shirt. He pushes it off his shoulders, down his arms, fingers fanned out against his chest. They’re kissing, _kissing_ , and neither one of them is drunk. Sam’s so grateful he could weep.

            “Dean, Dean, the door—”

            “Locked it.” Dean nips at his ear, nibbles the lobe and runs his tongue along the seashell curve where it meets his head. “No one’s gonna bother us here, baby boy.”

            Sam hears the snig of his zipper, feels Dean’s fingers working under the waistband of his pants. He arches into it, hips lifting off the bed. He threads his hand through Dean’s hair, pulls Dean’s mouth to his, kisses him with all the love in his body. Dean’s lips part, and Sam’s tongue slips in smooth and sweet.

            “I want, I want you to.” Sam shoves his pants down, kicks them to the floor. He wraps his legs around Dean’s waist and pulls him down, hugs him close, nails clawing at his back. “Please, Dean, I—”

            “Yeah, yeah, I got you.” Dean fumbles furiously with his boxers, tugging them down and tucking them under the swell of his balls. “Big brother’s got you.” He scrambles for the nightstand, pulls out the drawers, searching. “Shit. Okay, hold on, let me—”

            “No.” Sam tightens his legs against Dean’s attempt to leave. “Just—just use spit.” Sam’s vibrant, head thrown back, neck bared. “ _Please_ , Dean, just—just do it.” Sam’s eyes are screwed shut, so he can’t see Dean’s hesitation, torn between want and worry. He hears him spit in his palm, listens to the quick slick jerks of his cock. He grits his teeth when Dean pushes in.

            “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” Dean pushes Sam’s thighs back, grips at the back of his knees, presses them into his chest. “Open up, that’s it, relax, just relax, Sammy.”

            It burns, just this side of painful, the friction hot and rough. Dean’s face dips, chin to chest, watching his dick slip in and out of the tight heat of Sam’s ass. His hips smack wet, and soon they’re both drenched, the curtain-filtered light of day’s end warm and stale. Sam clings to Dean, hand curled over the back of his neck. He tugs him down, kisses him full on the mouth, body tightening around him.

            When he comes he yells without meaning to, the sound ripped from him. A hand clamps over his mouth, fingers pressed hard to the tender blossom of his bruise. His pained cry is muffled by Dean’s palm.

            “ _Quiet_ ,” Dean urges. He’s leaned low, mouth by Sam’s ear, whispering in harsh grunts. “Got to be—quiet—can’t let—they can’t—” And then he’s coming, buried to the hilt, balls pulled up tight against Sam’s ass. Sam feels it, the sudden rush of warmth inside him, a gilded edge to the ache in his jaw.

            Dean pulls out as soon as he catches his breath. They lay side by side, not touching. Sam feels the puddles of cum cooling on his stomach, the wet trail trickling out of his ass. He stands and grabs a shirt off the floor to wipe himself off.

            “A quick shower and then a bite to eat, what do you say?” Dean’s head is pillowed on his arms, face plastered with a self-satisfied grin. Sam cannot bring himself to look, does not trust himself not to fall under the spell of his emerald eyes.

            “You go ahead. I’ll clean up after.” Sam bends, picks up their clothes, tosses them into a pile in the corner.

            “That’s stupid. If we shower together, we’ll be eating that much faster.”

            “No, really, you go ahead.” Sam busies himself with the photocopies, arranges and rearranges the papers on the table, his back to Dean. He hears the mattress squeak as Dean sits up.

            “What about water waste? Come on, I’ll make it worth your while.” Dean stands and Sam can feel him behind him, the heat rolling off his body. He grips the table till his knuckles white out. “I’ll even wash your hair for you, come on, we can—”

            “I said no, Dean! Drop it!” The volume of his own voice startles him. Dean is frozen, hand suspended in the air, halfway to reaching for his shoulder. His face flushes and his jaw tenses.

            “Keep your fucking voice down. You want the whole motel to know our business?”

            Sam huffs out a joyless laugh and brushes past Dean. “Yeah, wouldn’t want the neighbors to hear. Whatever would they think?” He kneels by his duffle and rifles through his clothes.

            “What the fuck is your problem? Hey,” Dean grabs Sam’s shoulder, spins him around, “hey, I’m talking to you, dammit.”

            Sam surges to his feet, right up in Dean’s face. “What the fuck do you _think_ my problem is, Dean?” The deep stone rumble of Sam’s voice, the sudden flair of anger, catches Dean off-guard. He takes a step back.

            They’re quiet for a drawn out breath. Sam can’t bear to look at him, can’t meet the intensity of his brother’s stare. Dean mumbles under his breath. “I said sorry.”

            “What?” Sam sounds like shouting compared to Dean’s whisper. “What did you say?”

            “I said I was sorry!” And now Dean’s angry, chest against Sam’s, mouth drawn in a hard line, finger pointed accusingly at his face. “Alright, I know, I shouldn’t have slugged you, but I—”

            Dean’s tirade sputters out into silence when Sam starts laughing. His whole chest’s in it, loud and rolling, but it never reaches his eyes. “You think—” Sam laughs again, fingers his jaw, and shakes his head. “Fuck you, Dean.”

            “No, you know what, fuck _you_ , Sam. I don’t need to take this crap, okay? Not from you.”

            “Right.” Sam grabs his towel and whips it over his shoulder. “Cause you said sorry.” He walks into the bathroom, tries to close the door, but Dean catches the handle, forces it open.

            “You’re acting like a real bitch, you know that? Alright, I’m trying here, and you—”

            “No, Dean.” Sam pries his fingers off the handle, grip strong and unrelenting. “You’re not. And that’s the problem.”

            He shuts the door and starts the shower. For a long time he hears nothing but the splash of water against the linoleum. And then, sudden as a gunshot, the front door opens and slams shut.


	4. No I or You

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.

**Pablo Neruda, _100 Love Sonnets_**

 

            Sam stayed in the water till the sun set, till he pruned and began to shiver from the cold. He watched the sun dip below the trees, their leaves aflame in reds and yellows. The sky bled orange to blue to inky black, dotted with pinpricks of silver. A cool wind blew through the branches.

            Sam dressed in the dark, more by touch than sight. He stumbled over the slippery stones of the streambank. He fell, hard, scraping his knee on the coarse, sandy dirt. He picked his way back carefully, hands held out in front, stepping blind over roots and upturned stumps. Thorns nipped at his calves, bark scratched his palms, a low-hanging limb caught him in the face.

            He did not allow himself to think of Dean, too focused on feeling his way home. But a cold terror seized his heart when he broke through the trees at last to find the cabin dark and deserted. Beneath the magnolia where the truck normally sat, Sam found only tracks. His voice echoed when he called out.

            The bare bulbs glared too brightly, so Sam undressed in the dark, not bothering to wash or brush his teeth. He slipped beneath the covers, sheets cold against his skin. For a long time he listened to the quiet of the house, unnerved by the chilling absence of sound. His hands balled into fists. He screwed his eyes shut and drowned in the rush of his blood in his ears. His stomach twisted into knots—he worried he’d be sick. All night he tossed and turned, watching the sky gray into morning.

            Around seven he gave up trying to sleep and made breakfast. His head ached, a hollowed out, cotton coated sort of feeling that made hard thought and loud noises unbearable. His scrambled eggs turned to tasteless mush in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, chewed, without thought, more machine than man. He washed the dishes and sat down to wait.

            The hours of the day ticked interminably by. He tried to read, lounging on the couch, but his eyes could not focus, the words jumbling out of order, the black lines like so many ants crawling over the page. He tried to sleep, head pillowed in his arms, but the anxious uptick of his heart whenever he thought of Dean kept him awake.

_Where was he?_ The thought would not leave him alone. Had Dean abandoned him? As unlikely as it sounded, the worry nagged at his mind, chipping away with each jerk of the clock. His chest tightened with terror. Perhaps Dean had decided to get away, to wait him out till Dad came back so he could tell their father in person what a sick, twisted freak his son was. Dean probably couldn’t stand the sight of him, let alone the idea of being trapped in the same room with him. As the day grew old Sam grew certain Dean held nothing but disgust for him, that he was resolved to put as much distance between himself and Sam as humanely possible, that—he was sick at the thought, rushing to the bathroom as breakfast clawed up his throat—he would never see Dean again.

            If only! If only he could explain, could get Dean alone for two minutes, tell him it was a sick joke, a prank gone wrong, that he’d dreamt it, that it hadn’t been him, had been some changeling, a shapeshifter, a demon wearing his skin. He would say anything to make Dean believe, to make him stay, to make Dean look at him.

            It was past five when Sam heard the car pull up. He jerked awake from the half-sleep he’d been drifting in. His mouth tasted foul, tongue lush and eyes bleary. He staggered to the door of his room in time to hear the engine die. He listened, afraid to move a muscle. He heard the front door open and clap shut, followed by the heavy, unsure clomp of boots. He dared the door open a crack and peered into the living room, awash with dying light.

            Dean stumbled to the sink. Sam heard the rush of water and sloppy sips as Dean drank long from his cupped hands. He dried them on his jeans before half-falling onto the couch. Even from here Sam could smell the sour stench of alcohol, could see the red-ringed fatigue around his eyes. Dean worked one boot off, then the other, stretching his legs out with a contented sigh.

            Sam watched him till he fell asleep, till his breathing slowed and quieted to little more than a gentle whisper. Sam crept from his room on tiptoes, terrified of waking him. When he stirred, Sam froze, muscles cramping through the agonizing minutes, till he felt confident again to inch forward another few steps.

            He watched him, mesmerized by the steady rise and fall of his chest, the minuscule gap between his lips, the drunken flush of his cheeks. He grabbed the blanket off Dean’s bed and draped it over him, too afraid of waking him to tuck the corners. He stood over him for what felt like hours, savoring the line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his eyes, the tempting flash of neck. He memorized every detail, charted every freckle, etched Dean’s face into his memory, tucked away beside his heart, safeguarding him against forgetting.

            He did not cry as he walked away, but his heart broke, shattered to jagged, tiny pieces. He lay awake half the night, fingers bleeding as he tried desperately to put it back together again.

 

            Dean wasn’t on the couch when he awoke. A brief, paralyzing fear gripped him, held him fast. He could hardly breathe till he edged Dean’s door open a crack to find him slumped on the mattress, covers kicked to the floor. He hadn’t bothered to undress, had probably been half-asleep when he’d dragged himself off to bed.

            Sam was loathe to wake him, so he skipped breakfast, afraid the clang of pots and pans would disturb Dean’s sleep. Instead he curled up on his mattress, arms wrapped tight around his legs, hunger a dense little ball in his stomach. He listened for sounds of movement, a sudden stirring, a change of breath. He ignored his own trembling, forced down the worry bubbling up inside, threatening to spill forth. He concentrated on the bite of his nails, digging hard into his palm till the skin split and bled.

            Around noon, Dean got up. At first Sam did not believe his ears, mistaking the rustle of sheets for wind through the trees, the creak of floorboards underfoot for the house settling. He lay stock-still and listened as Dean stumbled out of bed, as he pissed, steady stream splattering against the stained porcelain. For a long moment he heard nothing—perhaps Dean had gone back to bed? But then he heard the stove click on, the _whoosh_ of the flame catching, and the clatter of plates.

            Sam imagined how he looked, making breakfast. He could see the tired frown, the shadow of scruff blooming across his cheeks, the tired muzzle of his bedhead. His stomach grumbled. He balled his hands into fists and pressed against the empty ache.

            When Dean knocked at his door Sam nearly fell out of bed, catching the corner at the last second. He did not trust his own voice; he grunted in response. Dean kicked the door open, leaned against the frame in that effortless way of his.

            “You hungry?” He did not look at Sam, but stared instead at the wall behind his head. “I made breakfast.”

            Sam nodded and stood, following Dean out into the kitchen. The smell of burnt butter and coffee hit him like running into a wall. He staggered, a little uneasy, suddenly weak. He saw Dean reach out, then stop, hand frozen in mid-air between them. Sam turned away and sat at the table.

            They ate in silence, each shoveling food into their mouths with mechanical precision, robots stuck on a loop. The scrape of Dean’s knife against his plate grated on Sam’s nerves. Once they’d finished they sat there, Dean half-asleep and gone, lost somewhere behind his eyes, and Sam too terrified, too paralyzed with worry, to move. He listened to the faucet drip, food settling heavy as stone in his stomach.

            Dean stood, the legs of his chair scraping against the faded hardwoods. The sound ripped Sam from the dark spiral into which he’d plunged. His eyes darted to Dean’s face.

            “I’mma get some sleep. Don’t wander off.”

            Sam watched him stalk off towards his room. He followed the tired slump of his shoulders, the weary shuffle of his feet. Inside he screamed at himself to get up, to do something, to _say_ something, _anything_ , to make Dean understand.

            “Dean.” His voice came out choked and thin. Dean stopped, hand on the doorframe, weight leaning into it, but he didn’t turn around. “It…it didn’t mean anything. I promise.”

            Sam waited, the lie settling between them. Dean hovered in the doorway, knuckles white against the stained wood. He shuffled inside and shut the door.

 

            From the outside looking in, nothing seemed to have changed. Dean woke up a few hours later, groggy but significantly less wrecked. He drank beer after beer (he’d restocked, Sam saw, the top shelf of the fridge lined with them) while Sam made dinner—baked beans over rice, side of steamed broccoli. They ate, again, in silence, Sam darting careful glances at his brother from behind his hair, eyes shielded by a curtain of brown. Dean ate quickly and quietly, eyes unfocused on the floor in front of him. When he finished he rinsed his dishes in the sink, grabbed a couple more beers, and locked himself in his room.

            It went like this for days, both of them falling into the rhythm of not speaking, less brothers and more strangers forced into cohabitation. Sam could only imagine what Dean did all day—he was too frightened to ask, too afraid that one wrong move, a misplaced step, a misspoken word, and the fragile peace would shatter, would send Dean hurtling from him, forever out of reach.

            Sam convinced himself he could live like this, this sort of half-life. That it was better to live with a ghost of his brother than no brother at all. All things considered, it could be worse. Dean never hit him, did not sneer at him in disgust. Never called him a _freak_ , a _fag_.

            Because Dean never looked at him at all. Because he barely spoke a word.

            They no longer dressed together. When Sam had taken off his shirt before bed one night, he’d seen Dean out of the corner of his eye, caught him, framed by the doorway, standing frozen in the dim moonlight. He’d turned away; Sam heard his door slam shut. Dean was careful around him, careful not to touch, to get too close. They took turns brushing their teeth, instead of shouldering in beside each other as they’d always done.

            Sam thought he would die of yearning, sick with an ache for Dean’s touch, for the brush of his fingers through his hair, the strength of his palm against his lower back, the warmth of his hand on his knee. But he knew that Dean, beneath his bravado and swagger, beneath the hardened façade, the brave face, was made of glass. One false step and he’d shatter.

            So Sam softened himself, grew content with table scraps, with glimpses of Dean as he shuffled from his bedroom to the fridge for a beer, from the couch to the bathroom. He took solace in the grunts, the monosyllabic words Dean tossed him when they ate together, the scrape of cutlery deafening in the quiet. Told himself that love was tolerance, not acceptance.

 

            Sam was reading in his room when Dean knocked on his door. Sam was so startled by his sudden apparition he nearly dropped his book. Dean still wore the same clothes from three days before. He could not remember when Dean had last showered. He smelled him—pungent and ripe, just this side of sour—all the way from his bed. A six-pack of beer dangled from Dean’s finger.

            “Wanna drink?” From his slurred tongue, Sam could tell Dean had had a few already. If things had been different, if they’d been like they had before, before everything changed, Sam would have refused, would have scolded Dean in the gentle, chiding way of his, would have cut him off and put him to bed. But things were not different, and the idea of doing something with Dean, _anything_ with Dean, of sharing the same air as him, made Sam’s heart swell and his chest ache to burst.

            “Yeah. Yeah, sure, okay.” Sam sat up, and Dean came round to sit on the edge of his bed. He leaned against the footboard, shoulder pressed into it, as far away as he could be and still technically sit on Sam’s bed. Sam hunched against his pillows, drew his legs up into his chest, and accepted the offered can.

            The metallic _snig_ , the carbonated _hiss_ , and the intermittent _slurps_ created a soft chorus, music accompanied by cricket violins, owl percussions, wind through the trees. Sam watched his brother out of the corner of his eye, gaze hidden behind the brown veil of his hair. Dean sloped inward, elbows on knees, dark shadow of scruff slowly darkening into a beard. He looked, suddenly, like their father.

            “Ain’t no fuckin’ girls around.” Sam, startled out of his reflection, looked at Dean. Dean stared into the open lip of his can, fingers gripped tight around it. He tilted his face to Sam, just an inch, a hint of a fraction, smiled in that consolatory way. “I mean, there ain’t even ugly ones. You know what I’d do to a dog-faced hooker in her fifties?”

            Jealousy, that vile, green-faced monstrosity roared to life in Sam’s belly, but he pushed it down, buried it deep, buoyed by the glint of smile on Dean’s face. “What?”

            Dean held his eyes for a long breath. Sam listened to his heartbeat, counted _one…two…three…_ Dean tipped his head back, downed the rest of his beer, crumbling the metal in his hand and tossing it onto the floor. “Fuck her. But from the back.”

            One beat and then they were laughing, really laughing, voices louder than anything around for miles. Tears streamed down Dean’s face, and Sam clutched his sides, afraid they would burst at the seams. They laughed till their bellies ached and all that came out were breathless gasps of joy, till the wall between, the icy silence, shattered, melted, faded away.

 

            It was easier after that night. They regained, if not normalcy, then an easing of tensions, an armistice. Dean never mentioned what had happened; Sam did not suggest they go swimming, even on the hottest of days, when sweat dripped into their eyes and their shirts clung to their backs. Dean borrowed one of Sam’s books, more for a prop, something to hold, to toss about, to deride and tease, than for want of something to read. Sam rode into town with him, ostensibly to help carry groceries, but really because the niggling fear that Dean would leave him, that all had not been forgiven, still kept him up at night, long after Dean had seen himself off to bed.

            There was little in the way of entertainment in Blowing Rock. An outlet mall offered discounted clothes. A general store—complete with rockers on the front porch—sold candy and dried goods. As Dean had been quick to point out, there wasn’t even a bar. And yet, on the slow, winding drive down the mountain into town, Sam remarked that no hamlet, no city, no valley under God was more glorious, more beautiful, than the sparse clump of buildings unfolding before them.

            The silences Sam once dreaded he now relished, the wind whipping his hair, till Dean turned on the radio, singing along to bathetic country ballads, his accent twanging as he strummed an imaginary banjo. Sam had regained that which he had almost lost—his brother had forgiven him his sin, overlooked the fact that he was a freak. And if Dean could never love him in the way Sam wanted to be loved—and oh, he did, he _wanted_ , achingly, the hours of the night dripping away beneath his ministrations, Dean’s whispered name cool upon his lips—at least his brother still loved him in his own, fraternal way.

            It had been about a week since the incident by the river—Sam couldn’t be sure, unwilling to count the days of silence, careful not to cast his gaze back—and they’d just returned from shopping in town, their gas and money running low. Dad had given them what he believed to be sufficient cash, but his was a Spartan life, wanting little, and he had not accounted for Dean’s propensity for drink. They’d bought what they could, not excluding a couple six-packs, but when the food ran out they’d have to get jobs, or more likely, resort to theft.

            But, rising up the mountain crests, Sam could not bring himself to care. He was making them steaks for dinner, which they’d bought for half-off since they’d been past their expiration date. Dean had sprung for a microbrew, not the swill he’d been drinking. He’d even ruffled Sam’s hair on the way to the car. Sam had swayed and blushed, arms laden with bags, but he’d bumped their shoulders together and pretended not to love it.

            “When’s dinner, Sammy? I’m starved.” Dean popped open a beer and threw himself down on the couch. He sprawled out, legs stretched clear to the other arm, head tipped back and throat bobbing. Sam tore his eyes away and busied himself with cooking.

            “We just walked in the door. But soon. Shouldn’t take me too long.” He lit the stove and greased the pan while the steaks thawed on the counter. Every so often he threw glances over his shoulder, watching Dean lounged like a renaissance painting gone wrong (but so, so right). Sam concentrated on peeling the bloody slabs from their Styrofoam packaging. “You could help, you know, if you’re so hungry. I’m not your wife.”

            “Yeah, but you’re pretty enough to be.”

            The steak slipped from Sam’s fingers and dropped into the pan with a violent sizzle and _pop_. He’d meant the comment as a joke, speaking without thinking, as Dean must have surely done as well. He felt his face flush hot, hotter than he could blame on the stove, and his hands trembled as he grabbed the spatula. He could not turn to look at Dean, afraid of what his face would reveal, afraid he would see right through him, would parse out the hidden joy he experienced at the mere thought. _Dean’s wife. Dean’s._

            “It’ll, uh, it should be ready in about ten minutes. That okay?” Sam listened for an answer over the snap of oil. He prodded the steak, gripping the cast-iron handle of the skillet. “Dean? It can be done quicker, if you don’t mind it a little bloody, but I—”

            Strong arms wrapped around his middle. Sam dropped the spatula in his surprise. He swayed, but Dean held him fast, hugged him close, his chest pressed against Sam’s back. Dean’s mouth ghosted over the nape of Sam’s neck, lips hot against his skin.

            “It’s just cause there’s no girls here.” Dean slid a hand down, cupped Sam through his jeans. “It’s just cause there’s no fucking girls here.” He slipped his hand into Sam’s underwear and squeezed.

            Sam reeled, blood rushing to his cock. He spun, dizzy, and would have crumbled and collapsed had Dean not held him up. He could not understand what was happening—Dean’s words, whispered against his neck, like so much white-noise through the static of his brain. He gripped the counter as Dean unfastened the button of his jeans, slid them down mid-thigh. Dean pressed his cock—thick, hot, pulsing—against Sam’s ass, and he moaned, head thrown back on Dean’s shoulder.

            Dean snaked a hand up Sam’s shirt, cupped his chest, fingers tweaking a nipple till Sam keened and moaned through bit lips. Dean ground against his ass—Sam could feel the pulse in his own cock as Dean’s nudged up his cleft. He shuddered, his dick straining and leaking.

            Sam tried to memorize it all, every detail, every sound, every smell. The way Dean bit his words halfway off, the stutter of his hips against his own, the heady smell of sweat, the thick musk of his cock, the sweet slice of cum. Sam took it all in, tucked it away inside his heart, in case. Just in case. In case this was the last time, the only time. Like a man stranded in the desert hoarded water, or how you’d conserve firewood in a snowstorm. The years of Sam’s life stretched out ahead of him, desolate and alone, Dean gone off and married to some woman with wide hips and pretty eyes. Sam saw himself, outcast, living on the edges, surviving off the tarnished memories of this night, when the world reduced down to calloused hands on his hips, gripping, pulling, holding.

            Dean spun him around, gripped the back of his neck and held him close. Sam stared at the closed lids of Dean’s eyes, at the worried plump of his bottom lip. And then he drank in the sight of Dean’s cock, thick and full and red at the tip, nudging his stomach, slick and glistening as it slid against his belly button. Hunger flared up inside him; his knees wobbled, went weak. He sunk to the floor, gripped Dean’s hips to steady himself.

            He licked his lips, opened his mouth, and took Dean in. His brother shuddered, his whole body trembling, as Sam slid his mouth down and around his cock, lips flared at the base. He drew back, until just the tip nestled between his lips. He laved his tongue over and around it, the sudden spike of salt on his tongue when he swiped across the slit. Dean fisted a hand in his hair, tight at the base, the other gripping his shoulder hard enough to hurt.

            The taste of him filled Sam’s mouth. He reeled, head swimming, his own cock dripping on the hardwood. He bobbed along the length of it, taking Dean in till he gagged, cock hitting the back of his throat. He ran his tongue all over it, up along the underside, dipping down to lick at his balls.

            Dean’s hand tightened as he moaned, lips parted in ecstatic pleasure. Sam watched him as he sucked his cock, watched his eyes flutter, his throat tightened, his pulse quicken. Watched his face flush and his jaw twitch. Sam gripped his own thighs, his hard cock bobbing forgotten in the air. He was focused solely on Dean, on Dean’s pleasure, on committing every sound, every gesture, to memory.

            Sam knew the second before Dean came. He felt it, in the sudden tightness of Dean’s grip, hard enough to pull hair from scalp, the way his balls scrunched up against his body, the way he mouthed _oh oh oh_. He tried to draw back, to pull out, but Sam held him, gripped his hips and took him down as deep as he’d go. He felt the hot spurt of his brother’s cum splash against the back of his throat. Dean strangled a moan as Sam suckled, nursing another slick jet from Dean’s pulsing cock.

            He kept Dean in his mouth, sucking, licking, tasting, savoring, until he softened and slipped free. Dean stroked the back of his head absentmindedly, softening the ache from where he’d nearly ripped his hair from his scalp. Sam’s cock strained between his thighs, but it seemed almost an afterthought. Sam peppered kisses on Dean’s thigh, reveled in the taste of his skin.

            Sam looked up at his brother. Dean’s head blocked the bulb dangling from the ceiling—he was lit up, haloed, by the dingy light. But his eyes, sunk in shadow, shimmered with a light all their own.

            The hand on the back of Sam’s head stilled, pulled away. Sam shivered at the loss, as the first, creeping edges of ache soaked into his body. His sore jaw twinged when he swallowed. Dean’s eyes dropped to Sam’s cock. His cheeks flushed.

            “Do you—I can, if you want—let me take care of that.”

            “No.” Sam heard himself speak, but the voice wasn’t his own. “I mean, you don’t have to, I can—”

            “No, it’s—let me.” Dean hesitated and sunk to his knees. He huddled in close, tucking Sam against his chest, chin resting on the top of his head. Sam inhaled the smell of him, practically smothered by it. He heard Dean spit in his palm, and then his hand slicked over his cock.

            Sam jerked and moaned as Dean squeezed, stroking over the length of him. He dug his fingers into Dean’s thigh, his shoulder, gripping, holding on for dear life. It didn’t take long—he came with a shout, spilling over Dean’s knuckles as he whipped his hand fever-fast over Sam’s cock. He stroked him off, milking another pearl of cum from his slit, and wiped his hand on his jeans.

            Dean held him as he got his breathing under control, as his frantic pants slowed and levelled out. He withdrew slowly, receding back into himself, drawing his arms away. Despite the heat, despite the sweat running down his flank, Sam felt cold.

            Dean barely spoke above a whisper. “We can—it’s just till Dad gets back.”

            Sam lifted his face to look at Dean. His wild eyes bulged, hair sweat-slick and askew. His lips, pressed white, formed a hard line. He looked like the people you pass on the street, the ones you pretend not to see. Sam had never been more in love.

            “Okay.” Sam hadn’t been expecting that—hadn’t been expecting anything, really. At worst he feared Dean would pretend it’d never happened, would swear him to secrecy, assure him that it had been a onetime deal. But this? Dad wouldn’t be back for another two weeks at least. Possibility stretched out before them, supple and lithe.

            Dean stood, hand steadied on the counter. Sam heard his knees creak. He took a step back and look down at his brother, sprawled half-naked on the floor, cum gone tacky and rapidly cooling. His fingers twitched.

            “It’s just till Dad gets back.” He said it softly, like he was speaking to himself.

            Sam watched him go, turning on his heel and disappearing behind his bedroom door. Sam lifted onto shaky legs. His knees and jaw ached, but he reveled in it, cock stirring at the memory still so fresh. He showered, crumpling his clothes in a ball and tossing them onto the ever growing pile. He toweled off and dressed for bed.

            He lay under the covers and stared up at the darkness. The last hour seemed like a dream. He grabbed his jaw and pressed until he felt the ache, to remind himself that it was _real_ , it had actually _happened_. Nervous energy pricked all along his arms and legs—he tossed and turned, mind full of possibility.

            At length he grew still. The night loomed full, dark and heavy, quiet in the way nature is quiet yet full of sound. The crickets singing, the hoot of an owl. He listened to it, this nocturnal chorus, lulled by the melody of skittering feet, of wind through the trees. The night took on a human aspect—he imagined the distant howls were laughter, the house’s settling a contented groan. Sam rolled onto his side, suddenly tired. As his eyes fell shut he thought he heard, was sure, the faint sound of crying, coming not from his window, but instead from the opposite wall, the one he shared with Dean. He tried to sit up, to open his eyes, but the dark wave of sleep washed over him, submerging his head in dreams.

            As the world shrank to darkness and Sam tumbled down the spiral staircase of unconsciousness, he assured himself that what he’d heard had only been the leaves rustling. Only this, and nothing more.


	5. Drinks on Me

            Sam is surprised to find Dean still waiting for him, huddled in the front seat of the Impala. He’d taken his time in the shower, letting it run cold, standing under the spray while he tried to get his breathing under control. Dean has a way of clawing up under his skin, always has. Probably part of why Sam loves him—despite, not because of. He’s like a drug, one hit and Sam’s hooked, itching for more. He’d wanted to give himself space, had expected Dean to bail, find something to eat on their own. They both could benefit from blowing off a little steam.

            So he’d washed till his heart slowed and the bitter bite of anger left his mouth. Dried his hair and dressed in no rush. But when he opens the door, there Dean is, jaw set, hands gripped tight at ten and two. Sam falters, pauses halfway to closing the door, unsure of what to do. He thinks, briefly, of scrambling back inside, hiding, waiting him out. But Dean sees him, nods his chin, reaches across the seat and opens Sam’s door.

            Neither of them speaks. Dean has the radio turned up, Aerosmith blasting. Sam rolls down his window, hangs his arm out. The air’s gone crisp like an autumn apple; he tugs his jacket tighter. Dean spots a bar, _Dick’s Rodeo_ , and a neon sign in the window advertises hot food and happy hour prices. The irony appears lost on Dean, who swings the car into the parking lot.

            A middle-aged crowd, mostly locals drinking up their paychecks, huddles around the bar or lounged in booths pressed against the back wall. A group of men mill around the pool table. Sam and Dean sit at a small, round, raised table, one in a series scattered about the middle of the room. A not unattractive women in her thirties, with teased hair and short shorts comes up, tells them her name is Sandra, and that she’ll be helping them this evening.

            “Can I get you boys started off with something to drink?”

            “I’ll take a beer.”

            “Two,” Sam holds up a couple fingers, “please.” Sandra smiles, hands them some menus, and goes to get their drinks. Sam browses the selection of burgers. Dean does the same. Sam can’t help but dart glances over the top of his menu, watching Dean’s brows knit together in concentration, lips pursed, like he’s really thinking about it. Sam worries the inside of his cheek, an anxious knot seething in the pit of his stomach. He’s on edge, foot tapping against the leg of the table, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

            “Here you go.” Sandra sets down their beers, the glasses slick with condensation, topped with a frothy head. “Y’all ready to order?”

            “I’ll have the Bacon Supreme.”

            “Cobb salad.” Sam hands her his menu. “Dressing on the side. Thanks.”

            Dean snorts, quietly, under his breath. Sam ignores him, downs a bit of his drink. He twists in his seat and watches the pool players disinterestedly. He can feel Dean’s eyes on him, like a brand against his cheek, but he refuses to turn around, to look at him. He’ll wait him out until their food comes, until they finish and leave, longer if he has to. A whining little voice in his head keeps telling him he’s being ridiculous, that he’s overreacting, that he’s lucky, should be thankful that he has Dean back, that they have _this_ back, even if it’s not perfect, especially after everything that’d happened. But Sam knows this isn’t true, knows that he can’t survive on scraps forever.

            He’s tried.

            “What do you think of her?” Sam can’t help but look, to turn and follow Dean’s eyes to the blond leaning over the bar. Her ass, round and juicy as a peach in her jean skirt, wiggles as she laughs at the barman’s joke. She takes her drink and sits on the stool, lips wrapped around her straw. “Think I can get her number?” Dean catches his eye, holds it, eyebrow quirked.

            Sam doesn’t know what’s going on. Dean’s not teasing, or if he is his voice is free of the snide derision, the boastful pride. He reclines in his seat, head tipped back, lips around the neck of his beer, but he never takes his eyes off Sam, not for a second. He sighs, sets his elbows on the table, leans in close. There’s a ghost of a smile on his face.

            It’s not a joke—it’s a threat.

            Something rotten bursts in Sam’s gut. Ichor spreads down to the tips of his toes. His insides feel slick with it. His heart’s beating fast, pounding in his ears, and he turns to look at her, her tight ass and full breasts, rakes his eyes over her thighs. Sam hates her, mouth full of bile, bitter jealousy caught at the back of his throat. His hand tightens on his glass. He wants nothing more than to toss it at her, to smash it across her little, round face.

            Sam thought they were past this. There had always been girls in Dean’s life—Sam’s affection had always been tinted by these women, colored by the sycophantic sirens surrounding the object of his obsession, preening and pawing, pretty in ways Sam could only dream of. He held up his love against theirs, deepened by the contrast, assured always that his was true, theirs a cheap imitation, a shallow shiver of lust. Where Sam burned eternal, they flickered and died, blown out with a breathy goodbye. But Sam had been so sure, after that vampire in Pasadena, after they’d drunk gallons of gin on the tin roof, when the storm had rolled in sudden as blinking, and they’d huddled together in the backseat till it passed. Sam had believed it would be them only from then on out. Dean might shy from his touch in public, might restrict their love to furtive fucks in motels, the blinds drawn, voices hoarse and hush, but at least Sam had fooled himself into thinking that he was the only one.

            He sees Dean watching him, testing, dipping his toe in the water. There’s something in Dean’s eye, too dull to be the spark of victory, but something. A glimmer of hope, or it’s more vicious cousin. It’s revenge, punishment, for the way Sam had been acting.

            “Only one way to find out.” Sam keeps his voice calm, level, plays the tremor off as a cough. He looks away, takes another sip of his beer, waits. He wants to be wrong, wants so badly to lose the bet he’s made with himself. Hopes, for the first time, that he doesn’t know his brother as well as he thinks. That Dean will crumble, won’t call Sam’s bluff, will sit back and nurse his drink, will smolder and pout. That they’ll be right back where they were when they’d walked in—bitter and angry and silent, but _together_.

            Sam doesn’t look up at the sound of Dean’s stool scraping along the floor. Doesn’t let his eyes follow the clomp of his boots as Dean sidesteps his way across the bar, saddles right up next to her. He says something—Sam can’t hear what—and then she’s laughing, high and clear, and probably only a little fake, and Dean laughs too, a quiet rumble in his chest, like he’s proud of himself.

            Sam’s heart breaks, just a little.

            Their food comes—Sam tells Sandra to send Dean’s burger over to him, expecting him to stay—but Sam’s lost his appetite. He pushes lettuce around with the spears of his fork, downs his drink, orders another. He can’t help but watch them, eyes darting to Dean’s hand on the small of her back, his lips close to her ear. He finishes his beer and orders a whiskey. He throws it back soon as Sandra sets it down. It burns all the way to his gut.

            “Rough day?”

            Sam blinks up at the guy from the pharmacy standing shyly by the edge of the table. He’s got two beers in his hands and a sheepish smile on his face. “Oh, hey, uh…”

            “Tommy.”

            “Right, sorry. Here,” Sam waves at the opposite stool, “have a seat.”

            Tommy smiles and sits. He slides the other beer across to Sam, hurries to talk over his protests. “Please. You look like you could use a drink.”

            “Thanks.” Sam takes the bottle and their fingers brush. Their eyes meet for a second before Tommy turns away, blushing. Sam gulps down a mouthful of beer.

            “So I’m guessing the case is giving you problems?” Tommy looks down at his own fingers, splayed out on the table. He draws a pattern in the puddles of condensation on the hard grain.

            “What? Oh, right, the case. No it’s fine, it’s just—” Somewhere over Sam’s shoulder he hears Dean laugh. On instinct he turns, neck twisted to see Dean’s head thrown back, teeth gleaming, hand on the swell of the woman’s ass.

            “Is that your partner?” Tommy nods his chin towards Dean. “From the car?”

            “Yeah.” Sam turns back around, hunches over the table, face downcast, lost in the depths of his beer. “Yeah, that’s him.”

            “He seems like an ass.” Tommy catches Sam’s eye and lowers his gaze. “Sorry. But it’s true.”

            Sam can’t help but laugh, but it’s a sad sort of laughing, the kind that never reaches your eyes. “No he’s…yeah, he’s a bit of an ass.” Tommy lifts his face, and they share a smile. “He can be great too, don’t get me wrong. It’s just…I dunno.” Sam takes a swig of his beer.

            Tommy leans forward, elbows braced on the table. “What?”

            “I just…I thought we were in this together, you know?” Sam’s a little drunk, belly warm and lips loose. He shouldn’t be saying this, not to Tommy at least, but his eyes are so soft, face turned up like he’s listening, really _listening_ , and Sam’s been quiet for too long. “I know we have our issues. Our…partnership is unconventional at best. But I didn’t…I didn’t think that mattered, anymore. I thought we’d moved past that, that we were—”

            “A team?”

            “Yeah.” Sam offers him a sad smile and stares at the swirls in the wood on the table. He looks up when he feels a hand cupped over his own. Tommy smiles warm at him, gives his fingers a gentle squeeze.

            “It’s important to know someone’s got your back.” Their eyes lock, and when Tommy starts to pull his hand away, Sam finds himself grabbing it, holding it in his own. Tommy blushes, ducks his eyes, but doesn’t let go.

            And it’s as easy as that. Here they are, holding hands in Missouri, and the world isn’t ending. The sky isn’t opening up, the seas aren’t boiling over. Maybe some sauced hick is giving them a dirty look, but if so, who cares? Because someone, a guy, is holding Sam’s hand in public for the first time. He smiles till his face aches.

            “’m interrupting somethin’?”

            Sam whips around fast enough to sprain his neck. Dean’s teetering on the balls of his feet, glaring over Sam’s shoulder, his mouth turned down in a sour sneer. His eyes bore into the back of Sam’s hand, but he refuses to pull away. If anything he holds Tommy’s fingers tighter, defiant.

            “Dean, this is Tommy. From the drugstore. He helped with the investigation.” Sam stares in challenge back at Dean. “Remember?”

            Dean nods, chewing on his bottom lip as he drags his eyes up Tommy, staring him dead in the face. _If looks could kill_ , Sam thinks. Tommy pales, forces out an unsure smile. He pulls his hand away from Sam to offer it to Dean.

            “It’s a pleasure.”

            Dean stares, unmoving, till Tommy’s hand withers and withdraws. He busies himself searching the bottom of his glass for an escape route.

            “Did you want something?” Sam sounds bolder than he feels, liquor brave. There’s challenge in the upturn of his chin.

            “I was thinking of heading out.” Dean doesn’t look at him, still glaring at the top of Tommy’s head. “Figured you’d want a lift back to the motel.”

            “No thanks.” Sam turns back around and offers Tommy a quick grin. “I think I’ll stay for another round.”

            He can feel Dean hesitating, the weight of his presence almost crushing. He refuses to look at him, focusing all his attention on a water stain by his thumb.

            “So, what, you’re just gonna walk home? It’s nearly three miles.”

            “My place isn’t that far.” They both snap their eyes to Tommy. He’d spoken in a whisper, mouth muffled in the lip of his beer. Sam feels his face flush, thrilled and terrified by the boldness of the offer. He hears Dean huff in barely contained rage.

            He should stop. Should stand up, leave, placate Dean, save this fight for another day. But he’s foolish and wounded, and Tommy’s unabashed affection makes him feel strong. He half turns his head, giving Dean his profile, speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

            “See? I’ll be fine. You head on out.” Sam darts a glance at the woman Dean had been flirting with, sprawled impatiently over the bar. He looks him in the eye for the length of a single heartbeat. “Have fun.”

            He doesn’t watch him go, doesn’t let himself turn around to see his receding back. Just listens to the stomp of his boot and the shout of the door slamming shut. He does not want to know if he went alone. Tommy lifts his eyes from his lap, glances sheepishly at Sam.

            “Sorry.”

            “What for?” Sam tilts his head back, downs the last of his drink. He waves two fingers at the barkeep.

            “I don’t know. Just felt like the thing to say.”

            “Well, don’t be.” Sam grabs a beer as soon as the barman sets them down between them. He nods and lifts his drink to Tommy. Their bottles _clink_. “Truth be told, I would have stayed regardless. But the company’s nice.”

            They talk until closing. Tommy tells him about growing up outside of Biloxi, about summers on the beach. Sam tells him half-truths, about a childhood spent on the road, following in his father’s footsteps. He can’t tell if their voices keep getting louder, or if he’s just more aware of the quiet as the crowd continues to thin, the hour advancing. They’re drunk, leaning heavy on the table, laughing at the other’s stupid jokes. Sam feels light, like he could float right out of his chair. An easiness he hasn’t felt in a long time pervades every thought, every action. He does not find himself worrying, measuring words, afraid of the response. Tommy just smiles at him like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do.

            The night air smacks Sam’s cheek as they stumble out into the parking lot. Tommy grabs his shoulder to steady himself and loops an arm through Sam’s. Tommy half-leads, half-trips them into an alley. Sam’s back collides with a wall of bricks, and he’s grateful for the support.

            Something soft and wet presses against Sam’s mouth. It takes him a second to realize Tommy is kissing him. His hands are fisted in Sam’s shirt, he’s up on the balls of his feet to reach Sam’s face. He has his eyes screwed shut. Sam feels his tongue swipe across his bottom lip.

            Something dark and deep stirs in Sam’s belly. He feels his lips parting, the sudden taste of Tommy awash across his tongue. His own hands wind their way to the small of his back, tangle themselves in his hair. He tugs, pulling him close, till their hips slot together and _there_ , there’s that sweet burn of friction as their hips move together in a rough grind.

            Sam tightens his grip on the back of Tommy’s shirt, uses his strength to leverage him around, presses him up against the wall. Tommy moans into Sam’s mouth, spreads his thighs so he can move in closer, press harder. He fumbles with Sam’s belt buckle, fingers careless in their haste.

            Some part of Sam, some rational, sane, _sober_ part of him, knows he shouldn’t do this, knows he should stop. That Dean doesn’t deserve this, even after everything, and worse, that he’ll never be able to forgive himself if he sees it through. But then Tommy slips a hand down the front of his pants and grabs him, eager and unafraid, and Sam bucks into the touch.

            “God, you’re so big. You’re going to have to take your time with me.” Tommy strokes him through his underwear, and it takes all of Sam’s strength not to melt in a puddle at his feet. His eyes flutter closed, and he tips his head back, smiling at the sky. “Yeah, is that good? You like that, Sammy?”

            Sam jolts like he’d just been plunged into ice-water. He staggers back, tearing Tommy’s hand from his dick. The world tilts and the ground beneath Sam’s feet goes taffy-soft. He braces against a dumpster and doubles over, vomiting between his shoes.

            Gradually things settle back into focus. His head stops spinning and he realizes the gentle pressure on his low back is Tommy rubbing circles into his skin. Sam wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, blinks the tears from his eyes, and spits.

            “I’m okay.” Sam stands, feels the world rush up, and steadies himself against the wall. Tommy tries to scoop an arm under his shoulders, but Sam shakes his head, pushes him away. “Really, I’m—it’s just too much to drink.”

            Tommy offers up his couch for Sam to sleep it off, but he declines. He refuses the taxi Tommy pleads with him to let him call, instead insisting on walking, saying it’d _help clear my head and sober up_. He apologizes again for ruining the night.

            After Tommy points him in the right direction, Sam tugs his jacket close, shoulders bunched up by his ears, and heads off down the road. It’s slow-going, each step careful, one foot in front of the other. The night is cool, but not bitterly so. The air carries with it the sweet scent of summer. It gets caught in Sam’s nose and he worries he’ll be sick again.

            The roiling, anguished stab in his gut isn’t just nausea. His hands clench into fists, shaking with guilt. Tommy doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in his game. He seems sweet, innocent in a way Sam has never been, could never be. Worse, his mind drifts again and again to Dean, born back on the waves of tortured love. He isn’t sure which upsets him more: the fact he’d betrayed Dean, or the fact it bothered him so much. Why should it? For all he knows, Dean is fucking some no-name woman in the same bed he’d fucked Sam in that afternoon. Where was Dean’s sense of loyalty? Sam highly doubted Dean lay awake at night, tormented by how he’d hurt Sam.

            Not that he doesn’t care—Sam had cleaned up too much of his blood in his short life to ever think Dean didn’t care about him—but Dean doesn’t feel things the same way he does. Dean can’t imagine hurt he himself does not feel. To him, Sam’s whining is excessive, an overly-emotional display of _how much of a girl you really are_. He shies away from words, from talking about things, terrified to give voice to the namelessness between them.

            Sam tries to understand, tries to remember the dark nights of the soul, tossing and turning not five feet from Dean’s sleep-soft back. How his face came to him, taunting him, tempting him. But who can remember pain once it has gone? It leaves nothing but a memory, a faint scar on the heart. They had suffered so much—how could this still trouble them? In a world of demons and witches and vampires, is loving Sam so terribly unbearable? Is what they do together so shameful Dean can’t speak of it, can only allow himself rapid trysts as they breeze across America?

            Sam doesn’t know which he dreads more, the problem being with him or with Dean. Being unlovable, or in love with someone unloving.

            The Impala’s parked in front of the motel room. The relief Sam feels is tinged with a sudden dread, a foreboding as he tries to peek through the drawn curtains. The lights are off, but that doesn’t mean much. He presses his ear against the window, listens. A soft rustling, the squeak of bedsprings, but not as much as he’d been expecting.

            Sam wonders, not for the first time, as he readies himself, keycard in hand, what he means to Dean, what _they_ mean to him. If Sam can continue to live this life they’ve built together, if he even _wants_ to live it. And if he doesn’t, if he admits to himself the dark truth buried at the back of his mind—that he does not want, has never wanted, this life—then what does he want? There was a time when the answer would have been Dean, when Sam would have thought the answer would _always_ be Dean. But now, as he swipes his keycard through the lock, as the light flashes green and he opens the door, a knife slice of light falling over the shape of Dean’s bare thighs, Sam asks himself if this is still true. He had wanted nothing but this for so long, he hasn’t considered what to do when he finally got it.

            Dean barely stirs when Sam creeps inside, edging the door shut behind him. He undresses in the dark, careful to fold his clothes on the foot of the bed. Sam knows he should brush his teeth, can feel the slick film of stomach acid and regurgitated beer coating his mouth, but he’s worried the light or rushing water will wake Dean. Instead he sits on the edge of his bed and watches his brother sleep.

            Dean never looks as peaceful as he does when he’s sleeping. Younger too, the years melting off his face, tension ebbing out of his shoulders. Like the weight of the world has been lifted. He’s kicked the covers halfway off, dressed only in a pair of boxers. Even in the dim light bleeding through the curtains, even in the pitch black dark of night, Sam can trace the constellation of freckles down his back. He breathes slow, the sound of sleep. Dean looks, not angelic—the rough stubble on his cheeks, the hard line of his jaw denying too cherubic of a simile—but peaceful. At peace. Like he’d finally stopped running.

            Sam climbs beneath the covers, tucking them up under his chin. His mouth is dry and his head pounds, but he feels the strong hands of sleep reaching for him before his head even hits the pillow.


	6. We Still Had Hours

What happened, happened once. So now it’s best  
in memory—an orange he sliced: the skin  
unbroken, then the knife, the chilled wedge  
lifted to my mouth, his mouth, the thin  
membrane between us, the exquisite orange,  
tongue, orange, my nakedness and his,  
the way he pushed me up against the fridge—  
Now I get to feel his hands again, the kiss  
that didn’t last, but sent some neural twin  
flashing wildly through the cortex. Love’s  
merciless, the way it travels in  
and keeps emitting light. Beside the stove  
we ate an orange. And there were purple flowers  
on the table. And we still had hours.

**Kim Addonizio, _Stolen Moments_**

 

            They lied beneath the blackberry bush. Shadows dappled across Dean’s shoulders. He licked the fruit from Sam’s navel. They laughed, long and sweet.

 

            They spent whole days in bed. They started sleeping together—actually sleeping, Dean curled around the question mark of Sam’s back, arms wrapped around his waist—after that first time. Sam had brushed his teeth and climbed beneath his blankets. He thumbed open his book of poems, sighing. They’d all, every single one of them, become about Dean. His eyes lingered over verses, and he felt his body stirring. Not five hours ago, Dean’s cock had been in Sam’s mouth. Closing his eyes he imagined, running his tongue along the roof of his mouth. He could still taste him, hidden beneath the minty stab of toothpaste.

            There was a knock at his door. His eyes flew open to find Dean, dressed only in boxers, leaning against the doorframe. Sam’s eyes hungered over the swell of his thighs, the bare expanse of his chest. Sam thrilled with it, this newfound freedom to look. He thought he’d never get enough of it, seeing Dean, Dean seeing him see.

            “You, uh, you going to bed?” Dean looked, not at Sam, but at the book in his hands.

            “No, I was planning on going for a run in my PJ’s.”

            Dean bent down to pick up a discarded sock, which he balled up and tossed at Sam’s head. “Okay, smartass, excuse me for asking.”

            Sam laughed, picking the sock out of his hair and dropping it back onto the floor. “No, wait, I’m sorry. I am, yeah.” Dean hesitated in the doorway. Sam noticed a blush working its way from his cheeks down his neck. “Why? Did…did you want to—”

            Sam wavered just short of giving voice to the turn their relationship had so recently taken. They had not spoken of it since last night, nothing more than Dean’s repetitive warning that this—whatever it was—would last only till their father returned. Even earlier, when Dean had fisted handfuls of Sam’s hair and came against his stomach, they had done so wordlessly, bodies colliding like asteroids, all raw emotion, primal need.

            “No, I,” Dean shook his head, focused intently on a warped plank by his toe, “thought maybe we could read together. In bed.”

            Sam’s heart somersaulted in his chest. He nodded hard enough to pull a muscle in his neck, but the smile spreading across Dean’s face was more than worth it. He disappeared into his room—Sam heard him rifling around—and he reappeared with a dog-eared Vonnegut and his pillow.

            Sam sat up and scooted to one side, making room for Dean. The mattress dipped beneath his weight. They adjusted themselves silently, shoulders knocking, till they settled and got comfortable. Dean opened his book with a grunt, brows knitted together in concentration.

            Try as he might, Sam couldn’t focus. The lines blurred, words floating out of place to dance across the page. His heart thudded in his ribcage, and his eyes drifted ceaselessly to Dean’s profile. He marveled at him, the slump of his shoulder, the pink tip of his tongue stuck between his lips. He reveled in the proximity, at the ease of this, of them, being together. Not that they had never read in bed together before, but now every gesture, every word, carried with it fresh implications, colored by the altered truth of their new reality.

            “You wanna get some sleep?” Sam nearly jumped at the sound of Dean’s voice, lost as he’d been counting the thin hairs circling Dean’s nipple.

            “What? No, I’m—” A yawn forced Sam’s mouth wide. He blinked tired eyes. “Yeah, yeah, probably for the best.” Sam closed his book and set it on the floor by his bed. He expected the creak of the mattress, the sudden loss of presence as Dean stood up, but instead Dean mirrored him, shutting his book and setting it aside. He kicked back the covers to bury beneath them. Sam stared, confused, awe-struck, unable to believe what was happening. Dean slapped his pillow a couple times before laying his head on it. His eyes swiveled up to Sam’s.

            “Get the light, would’ya?”

            Sam skittered to the switch on the wall and crept back under the cover of darkness. He eased himself into bed, fingers shaking as he peeled back the blankets. His hair haloed his face as he lay back on the pillow and rolled onto his side, his back to Dean. His pulse thundered in his ears.

            He felt Dean move, felt the mattress groan and shift. And then Dean tucked an arm around his middle, hugging him close. He felt the warmth of Dean’s back pressed against him, tight enough to feel his heartbeat through his spine. Dean’s breath puffed hot against the nape of his neck.

            “Is this okay?”

            Sam nodded, remembered Dean couldn’t see him. “Yeah.” Sam’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “Yeah, it’s—it’s perfect.”

 

            At first they only fooled around in their bedrooms—that first, culinary tryst a fluke, a one-time deal. Then their boyish bodies spilled out into the kitchen, the bathroom, onto the porch. Dean pushed him against the trunk of a fir and rutted till they came, open-mouthed and panting.

            The first time Sam blew him in the truck, Dean looked like he’d just gotten an autographed guitar from Jimmy Page.

            Their love was boundless.

 

            They spent hours learning the lines of each other’s bodies. The sharp curve of Sam’s lower back. The constellation of freckles across Dean’s shoulders. The dips and turns and secret places that made them moan and cry and arch off the bed. Sam mapped them all, etched them into his heart, memorized the roads of his brother’s soul.

 

            The first time Dean sucked his cock, Sam thought he would die.

            He had turned off the shower, dripping, hair plastered to his forehead. It wasn’t even ten yet, and already the heat of the day swelled and threatened to swelter. He’d awakened with Dean draped over him. Sam felt slick, the small of his back wet. Dean’s breath, muggy and rank, tickled the side of his neck.

            He wiped steam off the mirror and marveled at his reflection. Hickies covered his neck and dotted his inner thighs. A bite mark on his left shoulder glared, swollen and red. Sam ran his hands over them, these testaments to Dean’s love. Sam shut his eyes and remembered the weight of his brother atop him last night, their cocks sliding together in the thick grip of Dean’s hand. He shivered at the thought, fingers tickling up his spine. He felt his body stiffen and stir.

            He came back to the room in only a towel, creeping so as to not wake Dean. He knelt on the ground and rifled through the ever-growing pile of their clothes. He held up a shirt, sniffed it, then noticed the cum stain from where Dean had used it to wipe himself clean. An idea thrilled through him. Sam held the shirt to his face, inhaled the musky smell of his brother’s desire. His cock tented the front of his towel. Behind him Dean shifted and groaned. Sam shoved the evidence beneath a mountain of socks, standing and whipping round.

            “Mornin’,” Dean grunted, eyes scrunched shut, as he stretched. The blanket slipped off his chest to snag at his hips. Sam hungered for the thin wisp of hairs below his navel. Dean cracked one eye open and stared at him. A devilish smirk spread across his face. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

            “What? I—” Sam looked down at himself, at the towel straining around his waist. A blush burnt like wildfire on his cheeks. “Oh, no, I—”

            “So you’re _not_ happy to see me?” Dean rolled over onto his stomach and the blanket fell off and away. Dean arched his back in a stretch, and Sam watched the pale swell of his ass. He swallowed thickly, cock pulsing. “Cause here I thought I’d help you out with your…little situation.” Dean smirked, chuckling to himself. “Not that there’s much that’s little about it.”

            Dean curled a finger in the air, beckoning Sam to come, and he obeyed, feet shuffling forward. Dean tugged the towel free from Sam’s waist and let out a long, appreciative whistle. Sam’s face felt like it was on fire. He burned under Dean’s gaze, but he stood, transfixed, rooted to the spot. He could not run, even if he’d wanted to.

            Slowly, Dean ran his hands up Sam’s thighs, still damp from his shower. He cupped Sam’s balls in one hand, while the other gripped him, squeezing before sliding up in a tortuous stroke. Sam shuddered, weak-kneed and moaning. Dean grinned, tongue stuck between his teeth, as he slid his hand up and down, up and down, languorous, watching the way Sam’s face tightened up, the way his lips parted and his tongue wagged.

            Sam carded his fingers through Dean’s hair, anchored himself, legs suddenly weak. Dean swiped a thumb over Sam’s slit, catching a translucent pearl of precum, smearing it over the head. He rolled Sam’s balls in his hand, tugging gently, till Sam shuddered and shook.

            “Jesus, Dean, I—” Sam licked his lips, one arm braced against the wall. “Fuck, I want you to—”

            “What, Sammy?” Dean craned his neck up, hands slowing but never stopping. They were almost whispering. “What do you want?”

            “I want you to put it in your mouth.”

            Dean stilled, and Sam’s eyes snapped open to look at him. Dean chewed his bottom lip, looking, not at Sam’s face, but at his cock, eyes rooted to it.

            Blood pounded in Sam’s ears. It was stupid to have said anything. The past couple of weeks had been magical, more than Sam could have ever wished for, and he’d had to go and ruin it. Dean had been skittish after that first night, their hands quick and silent, but like a frightened colt, Sam had calmed him down, so he no longer flinched from his touch. Now Dean came for him, lunging and grabbing, pulling Sam close and covering him with kisses, hands wandering. But they’d never done this. Sam had sucked Dean off dozens of times by now, addicted to the weight and taste of him on his tongue. And though Dean would bite and suck bruises onto his thighs and neck, he’d never touched Sam’s cock with anything but his hands. Sam knew this was difficult for him, that he wasn’t…that Dean wasn’t like him.

            But he’d hoped maybe, just maybe.

            Sam felt something hot and wet lap at the head of his cock. His eyes flew open, staring down at Dean, whose brows knit in concentration. He swiped his tongue across Sam’s slit, saw the look of surprise run across his face. Then he parted his lips and took Sam into his mouth, sucking noisily, spit dribbling out the corners of his mouth.

            Sam moaned, grip tight enough to hurt, tufts of Dean’s hair sticking out between his fingers. Sweat dribbled down to the curls at the base of his cock, running down and dripping off his balls. Dean worked sloppily, lips fluttering around the shaft, gagging if he went farther than halfway. But to Sam, it felt like heaven.

            Dean coughed, pulled off, and Sam’s cock popped free of his mouth. He wiped his hand across his lips, and took him in again, forcing it to the back of his throat before he came away sputtering. Dean took him in again, tongue swirling around the head, and when he flicked his eyes up at Sam, when he looked at him with limpid, pale greens, as if asking, _is this okay, is this good_ , Sam’s heart filled and swelled and burst. He came, sudden and stuttering, spilling into Dean’s mouth. Dean pulled away, and the final spurts shot through the air, landing on the floor and mattress.

            Sam sunk to his knees, half leaning on the bed. His breath came in ragged gasps, heart jack-rabbiting against his ribs. Dean sat stock still while Sam collected himself. Sam failed to notice Dean’s hand, balled into fists on his lap. He straightened, brushing his hair out of his eyes. He became aware suddenly of his nakedness. He grabbed a pair of boxers and slipped them on, standing.

            “You want me to um, I mean, you hungry? I can go make breakfast.”

            Dean nodded, and Sam hurried from the room. Over the bang and clang of grabbing a pan and eggs and getting coffee started, he didn’t hear Dean slip into the bathroom, didn’t hear him spit into the sink, nor the rushing water as he rinsed out his mouth. Sam was lost, too far gone, to notice anything.

 

            They went back to the stream. Spent hours splashing until Sam’s muscles ached. On the banks, Dean covered his body with his own. They walked back, hand in hand.

 

            The house swelled with the smell of baking.

            Flour coated Sam’s wrists, batter caked under his nails. Dean lurked on the edges of Sam’s vision. He slinked over, dipped a finger in the mix and licked it clean.

            “Hey!” Sam nudged him with his hip. “Wait till it’s cooked. You want to catch salmonella?”

            “Will you take care of me if I do?” Dean wrapped his arms around Sam’s waist. He felt the tumescent bulge of his crotch press against his ass. Dean’s lips whispered against his neck.

            “Fat chance.” Sam practically panted. “I’ll leave you for the wolves.” His cheeks colored red, mouth suddenly dry. Dean’s fingers toyed with the button of Sam’s shorts.

            “I got you something.” Dean nipped at the dangling lobe of Sam’s ear. “A present.” Dean pushed something into Sam’s hand.

            Sam held the gift up, letting it unfurl. The kitchen light caught the lace, filtering through, turning the red rose. He twisted in Dean’s grip.

            “Is this a joke?” Sam’s face scrunched up. “Dean.”

            The smile slid off Dean’s face. “What, I—I thought maybe—”

            “What, that I’d wear them? Like some girl?” Dean backed away slowly. Sam clutched the panties in a fist. “Well?”

            “Jesus, Sammy, calm down. Maybe you _are_ a girl.”

            Sam saw red. He shoved Dean, shoved him again, before storming out. Dean called after him, but he didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, even as his eyes went wet and the world shimmered.

_Stupid, so fucking stupid_. How could he have let himself believe? Dean had made it perfectly clear— _there’s just no girls around_. It had never been about him. Sam was convenient. He was _there_.

            He walked until his anger simmered out, leaving behind the dull ache of misery. He slumped against the trunk of a tree and slid down to the ground, suddenly exhausted, his hands shaking. He sniffled, running his wrist under his nose. He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his palm, but his tears kept coming.

            It’s not that Sam had thought that they were— _dating_ isn’t the right word, his heart leaping at _boyfriends_ —that they were anything serious. Dean had stressed that as soon as Dad came for them, this, whatever it was, would stop. But Sam had nursed hope that, their couplings, though brief, meant something to Dean, something close to what they meant to Sam. He knew Dean wasn’t in love with him, not in the way Sam was, but he’d hoped that, just maybe, Dean saw him as something more than a little brother with a hole.

            Sam stayed out until it got dark and the moon rose like a sliver of silver. Most of his anger had cooled to a seething discontent. He stalked back to the cabin, planning to shut himself away in his room. He had not expected to find Dean waiting on the porch steps.

            He lifted his head when he heard Sam approach, his eyes catching the moonlight, a pale green. He stood, blocking Sam’s path. When he spoke, his voice came out chocked.

            “Thought you ran off on me.” Sam stared up at him, waiting. He watched the bob of his throat when he swallowed. “Sammy, listen I—” His voice cracked and he tried again, coughing. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Sam dared a look. “I swear.”

            Sam teetered on the first step. Even now he was a little taller than Dean, eyes level with his forehead. The air between them crackled with charge. His gaze trickled down to Dean’s mouth, the sweet bow of his lips.

            “I’m not a girl.”

            “Sammy, fuck, I know—”

            “I’ll never be a girl,” Sam continued. “If you—if that’s what you want, I can’t—”

            “No.” Dean grabbed his wrist. His fingers felt a brand against Sam’s skin. “I don’t want that.”

            “Then what do you want?” The words came out barely above a whisper. Or maybe Sam just couldn’t hear them over the beating of his own heart. “What do you want, Dean?”

            For a long while Dean said nothing. He turned his eyes to the sky. Sam felt a tremor against his skin, the nails of Dean’s fingers digging into his skin.

            “You.” Dean looked at him, eyes wet and shimmering. “I want _you_ , Sammy.”

            When Dean kissed him, Sam tasted liquor. But then Dean’s tongue slipped inside his mouth, and his arms wrapped around his back, and Sam stopped caring about everything that wasn’t _this_ , everyone that wasn’t Dean.

 

            He ended up wearing the panties anyway. Dean ate him out for an hour. Sam came. Twice.

 

            The first time neither of them meant for it to happen.

            They’d been reading in bed. Even inside they could feel the sun beating down on the tin roof. Rain had been predicted, air humid and heavy, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. They’d stripped down to their boxers, but their skin was still sticky with sweat. There was a peeling _strrrrk_ whenever they moved, glued as they were to the bed and each other.

            Sam tried to concentrate, but sweat kept beading into his eyes, making them sting. He rubbed the heel of his palm across his face, slicked sweat off his brow and through his hair. Dean had abandoned his book hours ago, having given up trying to read, and shut his eyes instead. But Sam could tell from his breathing, from the coil of his shoulders, that he wasn’t asleep. _Too hot by half._

            “Dean?” Sam asked, putting his book down. “Dean.” He nudged his shoulders. Dean scowled and groaned, rolling over but not opening his eyes. “Dean, come on, I know you’re awake.” Sam shook him, hand on his arm, till Dean snatched his wrist, pulling him up and over. They rolled until Dean had Sam pinned beneath him, hands on his wrists, hips pressed into his stomach.

            “I’m awake now.” Dean grinned down at him, amused as Sam struggled. He might have been bigger, but Dean was strong, and he used his weight to his advantage. Sam pressed against Dean’s hold, fingers digging into his wrist. Then he hooked a thigh over Dean’s back and flipped them. Dean let out a surprised yelp as his head landed on a pillow. Sam sat astride him, holding him down. He batted Dean’s hands away, thighs bracketing his chest and pinning him in place.

            “Say Uncle.” Sam jabbed a finger into Dean’s ribs. “Say Uncle.” Dean squealed, arms covering his chest, but Sam poked and prodded his fingers in the gaps between Dean’s elbows. “Say Uncle, Dean.”

            “Quit it,” Dean choked out between laughs, “Sammy, quit!”

            “Not till you say Uncle.” Sam’s fingers danced up and down Dean’s flank, jabbing and tickling, while Dean squirmed and howled beneath him. He tried unsuccessfully to bat his hands away, but he was too busy protecting stretches of sensitive, exposed skin. Then Dean fisted a handful of Sam’s hair and tugged him down to smash their mouths together.

            All the air left Sam’s lungs in a rush. Dean sucked down a gust of breath, Sam exhaling into his brother’s mouth. Dean’s tongue moved against his lips, wiggling inside to slip and slide, tasting and teasing. Sam shuddered and moaned, hands sliding up Dean’s chest. His thumbs rubbed over his nipples and Dean groaned, low in his throat, the sound sending a torrent of blood to Sam’s cock. Sam arched his back, Dean’s palms spread out over his hips, moving back till he felt the press of Dean’s crotch against his ass.

            “Do you want to?” Sam whispered against Dean’s lips, hoping his brother would ignore the tremor in his voice. Dean blinked up at him; Sam counted the fleck of gold amidst the moss of his eyes. When Dean swallowed, he could hear it.

            “I don’t want to hurt you.” Dean’s hands stilled where they’d been rubbing circles on the small of his back. His thumb rested on the waistband of Sam’s boxers. Sam tipped his face down and kissed Dean, pressed their mouths together for the span of ten heartbeats.

            “Then don’t hurt me.” He hooked a finger into his underwear, rising onto his knees to slide them down and off his thighs. Dean watched him, following him with his eyes as he resettled atop Dean’s lap. His cock flopped against Dean’s belly.

            Sam felt the weight of his brother’s gaze and he blushed, suddenly self-conscious. He crossed his arms over his chest, but Dean reached up to pull them apart, trailing his fingers down Sam’s skin. His touch was soft, a suggestion of contact, slow and reverent. He grabbed his cock and squeezed. Sam closed his eyes, threw his head back, and moaned.

            “We don’t, I mean,” Dean said, “I don’t have…” Now it was Dean’s turn to blush, looking sideways and down, too embarrassed to look Sam in the eye.

            “Oh. I mean, do we need them?” Dean snapped his gaze to Sam’s, his face a brilliant shade of pink, and his fingers still wrapped around his cock.

            Sam licked his lips and tried to slow his pulse. “You’re always smart about it, right? And, and I’ve never, so—”

            “Wait.” Dean pushed up onto his elbows, eyebrows bunching together as he stared at Sam. “You mean… _never_ never?”

            Sam looked away, face suddenly hot, his cheeks a deep red. “I could’ve. I just…” Sam shrugged, the words getting caught in his throat.

            “What?” Dean almost whispered, thumb tracing circles on Sam’s thigh.

            Sam let out a long, shuddering breath. “I didn’t want to unless it was with you.”

            Dean stilled and stared. Sam turned his face away, too nervous, too afraid of what he’d see, to look at him. He felt fingers land on his chin. Dean tilted Sam’s face back, sliding up to cup his cheek. He kissed him like it meant something.

            Sam widened his mouth the longer they kissed. Dean’s tongue swam around his, hand on the back of his head holding him in place. He ground his hips into Dean’s crotch, swallowing the rumbling moans Dean eased down his throat. Sam’s cock slid between them, precum dribbling from his slit and smearing across Dean’s belly. Dean shoved his underwear down around his knees, cock flopping out to smack against Sam’s ass. Dean grabbed his cheeks and spread them, his cock nudging up against Sam’s hole.

            “Please.” Sam licked into Dean’s mouth, hands gripping his head. “Dean, _please_.” His hair haloed his face, tickling Dean’s nose. Sam shuddered as he felt something slick slide against the cleft of his ass. _Dean, Dean’s cock, Dean’s cum_. Sam shook and the tip of his dick glistened. He grabbed Dean’s hand, sucking a finger into his mouth.

            Dean gasped, mouth a perfect _O_ , as Sam’s lips fluttered over Dean’s knuckle, as his tongue laved at the whirled pad of his finger. Spit dripped down the back of his hand, the sounds Sam was making practically obscene. Dean’s cock twitched, each pulse making the fat vein along the underside swell to bursting. Sam grabbed his wrist and guided his hand back behind him, pressed Dean’s finger against his hole.

            It slipped in with almost no resistance, the ring of muscle loosening to let Dean’s slick digit slide in, all the way to the knuckle. Sam threw his head back in a moan, but the breath stopped in Dean’s chest. Sam’s heart beat like mad, his whole arm warm and trembling at the thought of Dean being _inside_ him. Dean wiggled his finger and Sam went bowstring taut, back arched, ass pushing back, taking him deeper, like he would swallow Dean’s whole hand if he could.

            “Is this—are you okay?” Dean’s voice came out in a gruff whisper, racked and wrecked. He moved around inside Sam, slipping out and changing the angle before pushing back in. Sam screwed his eyes shut, hunched over Dean’s body, face smothered in his brother’s neck. Dean felt his breath in warm puffs against his throat. “Sammy?”

            “More.” Sam begged. “Please, Dean. I want to feel all of you.”

            Dean cupped a hand to the back of Sam’s head as he started to move his finger in and out. Sam’s thighs trembled on either side of Dean’s ribs. He felt something, smooth yet hard, roughly the size of a nut, a couple inches inside. Dean pushed at it, found it gently pliant, and Sam made a sort of chocking sound atop him. Dean stilled, twisting his neck to look at him. “Did I hurt you?”

            Sam shook his head, at a loss for words, and moved his hips back so Dean’s finger dragged against the same spot. He moaned open-mouthed, tongue lapping at Dean’s pulse, sucking a burnt plum bruise at his collarbone. Dean nudged the spot again, this time with more force, and Sam trembled like he’d crumble into pieces.

            “I—I can’t.” Sam’s nails bit into the meat of Dean’s shoulder, clinging on for dear life. His voice was little more than a choked sob, strained and stretched thin enough to break. “I can’t, please." Sam rolled his hips, dragging his dick across Dean’s belly. His mind blissed and blurred, all thoughts incoherent, little more than a series of sensations firing along his nerves. “Please. Please, Dean, I need.” Dean slipped his finger free and Sam whined at the loss, at the awful sense of being empty.

            “What, Sammy, come on.” Dean carded his fingers through Sam’s hair, pulled his face back to look at him. He kissed his brother’s swollen bottom lip. “Tell me.”

            “Kitchen.” Sam lifted his weight off of Dean, sliding down onto the mattress. His body felt like it was on fire, sweat trickling down his spine. “Oil.”

            Dean scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping in his haste. Sam squirmed atop the sheets, reaching back to press his own fingers against his hole, teasing, just the crescent of his nails slipping in. He heard cabinets slamming open and shut, the clink and clatter of Dean’s search. Something toppled to the ground, and Dean swore. Then he came running, out of breath, a bottle of vegetable oil in hand.

            Sam rearranged himself, flipped over onto his belly and rose to his hands and knees. He arched his back and pressed his ass up, thighs spreading wide as he sank his hips low. Over his shoulder he looked at Dean, who stood transfixed in the middle of the room. His mouth hung open and his dick bobbed in the air.

            “Dean.” One word, a name, and it carried everything Sam wanted to say, all his need, his want, his desperation. A prayer offered up, his body the sacrifice. Dean stalked forward, uncapping the oil and lathering his palm. He slicked his dick till it glistened, dripping. The mattress groaned as he knelt on it, inching towards Sam.

            He grabbed Sam’s hips, pulling him back, so the head of his cock nestled against the tight bud of Sam’s ass. Sam hid his face in the face, broken sobs threatening to burst forth as his thighs trembled with need. Dean slipped in just as easily as before. The breath left Sam in a rush, like he’d been gut-punched. He gritted his teeth as Dean pushed in, inch by inch, spreading him, opening him up.

            He shuddered as Dean bottomed out, buried up to his balls. Sam panted, tried to slow his breathing, but it was so much, Dean, his cock, being inside him, being filled by his brother. He nearly lost it when Dean’s thumb rubbed soothing circles into Sam’s ass, his other hand reaching around to stroke him back to hardness.

            Dean seemed afraid to move, afraid to hurt him. But the tight heat of his little brother wrapped around his cock was almost too much to handle. He sucked in a breath and tried to steady himself. He shifted his knees, and Sam groaned beneath him.

            “Did I—?”

            “Just.” Sam shuddered and maneuvered around to lie on his back. Every move made him grit his teeth. “Just fuck me already.”

            It hurt, like a bruise in motion. Sam clenched and shuddered as Dean slid halfway out, only to push in deep till his balls brushed against Sam’s ass. He gasped, nails digging down the curved slope of Dean’s shoulders. He bared his teeth, sucking in a cutting breath through flared nostrils. Dean’s hands slipped on his sweat-slick thighs, pushing Sam’s knees into his chest, lifting his hips off the mattress. The angle shifted and the head of Dean’s dick dragged across something inside him, pliant yet firm, the same as before. Sam twitched, face jerking, as heat rolled through him, up his belly, to spread like egg yolk over his chest and down into his fingertips. He moaned, mouth open and wet, clawing at the back of Dean’s head, pulling his face closer.

            “Again.” Sam croaked out a hoarse whisper. “Dean, do that again.”

            Dean grinned, shifting his hips and setting his knees. He leaned down onto his elbows, face tucked up against Sam’s throat. He moved, quicker now, neck taut. Sam pressed his forehead into Dean’s shoulder and bit a moan into it. Dean snarled, nipping at Sam’s ear, and moving faster, leaning onto Sam’s thighs, forcing him open.

            Sam relaxed, unclenched the muscles in his thighs, and let himself melt into Dean. Their chests pressed, wet and hot to the touch. The air was heavy with them, sweat and something darker, heady and ripe. It was easy, the smooth roll of Dean’s hips. A scratch of friction, Dean’s cock dragging along his insides. Sam looped his arms around Dean’s neck, holding him buried against Sam’s chest, doubled over as his fingers pressed bruises into his skin.

            It was too much, too good, Sam’s whole body tight and on fire, his dick trapped between their bellies, rubbed with each snap of Dean’s hips. He gnashed his teeth to keep from screaming, afraid the sound would tear him open, crack him down the middle and all he was would fly out and away. He whimpered into Dean’s hair, the smell of their cheap, store-brand shampoo thick in his nose.

            “You feel so good.” Dean panted, his lips a brand against Sam’s collarbone. His teeth scraped over skin as he licked and sucked, tasting the tang of Sam’s sweat. “God, Sammy, you feel so _fucking_ good.”

            Sam fisted a hand in Dean’s hair and brought their lips crashing together. He bit and licked and sucked his tongue down his throat. He wanted to taste him, to swallow him, to absorb Dean fully into his body, to tuck him away beside his heart and never let him go. He felt the muscles of his belly flex, stomach pulling taut, each breath punched from him while Dean barreled deeper and deeper.

            “So fucking tight.” Dean shifted, hand sliding down Sam’s thigh, and he threw his head back in a moan. “So fucking tight for me, Sammy. God, you give it up so good, like you were fucking _made_ for it.” Sam nodded, throat too choked for words. He pressed his mouth to Dean’s shoulder and hoped he understood, prayed he knew that _yes, you’re right, I was made for you, only you, Dean_.

            Dean went cross-eyed, hips stuttering as his breath hitched. He squeezed Sam’s hips hard enough to bruise, and Sam arched into the touch, writhed as the tendons on Dean’s neck pulled sharp enough to snap. He buried himself in Sam’s ass, balls pressed hot against his taint, and then he was coming.

            Sam felt the sudden rush of liquid filling his body—the way sweetwater fills a cup. He did not have the time to reach down between their stomachs, to grab his dick and bring himself off in a flurry of movement. Dean smothered him, mouth on his, and he spilled a jet of tacky cum onto their bellies. He moaned against Dean’s lips, let his brother swallow every desperate plea as he jerked and twitched, another spurt painting his chest. Behind his eyes colors danced in a blinding show of light. His vision faded white. Every touch, the slightest movement, lit his nerves afire. He existed within and without himself, the beating of his heart booming as thunder, trapped beneath the delicious weight of his brother.

            Slowly, the world narrowed back into itself. The rustle of wind transformed into Sam’s own ragged breath. His hips ached from the angle at which Dean lay atop his thighs, knees pressed into his chest. Dean panted against Sam’s neck, fingers still gripped tight, like he was afraid Sam would fly away from him if given half a chance. But there was nowhere else Sam would rather be.

            They lied together for what felt like hours. Sam ached, not from the punishing fuck, but the emptiness after. He’d moaned soon as Dean slipped out, wishing immediately he’d push back in. And when he’d rolled away, sitting up on the edge of the mattress, a sudden terror gripped Sam. He was paralyzed as Dean stood and walked from the room.

            Sam did his best to slow the mad beating of his heart, but his thoughts ran dark. He heard the sound of rushing water from the bathroom, the soft pad of Dean’s feet, and the bang of kitchen cabinets being opened and closed. Then he saw him and all the tension melted from his body. Dean came back into the room, droplets still dripping from his chin, a glass of water in each hand. He gave one to Sam, gulped down his own, and climbed back into bed. He arranged them so his chest pressed against Sam’s back, an arm slung lazily over his waist.

            They’d barely moved since, only to encourage blood into fingers and toes gone numb. Sam felt Dean’s breath tickling the nape of his neck. His hair ruffled in the breeze. He thought maybe Dean was sleeping—he hadn’t stirred in the past thirty minutes—but did not roll over to check for fear of waking him. He never wanted this moment to end, wanted to spend the rest of his life wrapped in Dean’s arms, aching from his brother’s cock.

            Sam watched the light move across the far wall, watched in slant towards the corner as it colored orange and then red. It lit up the room, brightening the drab, off-beige paint, stretching from a square to a rectangle to an oblong shape beyond naming. The heat of the day broke, and Sam felt a cool breeze brush his skin. His eyelids grew heavy, limbs like lead, and his thoughts slowed to a sluggish pace. Fatigue draped itself over his whole body—even his breathing became labored. Sleep danced at the edge of his mind, creeping closer with each second. Sam shut his eyes and gave himself over to it.

            All night he dreamt of Dean, and knew not that he was dreaming.

 

            The sound of an engine woke Sam with a start.

            His body, slower than his mind, took time to react, his limbs heavy with sleep. His eyes stared unfocused up at the ceiling as his thoughts spiraled. _He said five weeks, it’s barely been three, he can’t_ —Sam rolled his to face Dean, reaching a hand to his shoulder to shake him awake, but found him, muscles tensed, a finger pressed to his lips.

            Dean leapt from bed and threw on a pair of jeans. He disappeared into his room, only to come back, gun in hand. “Stay here.” Dean silenced him with a look, cocking the hammer. Sam listened to him creep into the living room, heard the sound of the screen door being opened. Sam sat up, straining for any clue as to who it could possibly be. The sound of an engine dying came to him, then the muffled _thump_ of Dean’s feet on the porch steps.

            For a long time he heard nothing. Sam worried at a hangnail between his teeth until the skin tore and bled. At last he kicked off the covers and slipped on a pair of boxers, tiptoeing to the edge of his bedroom. If he craned his neck, he could just make out Dean through the grime-coated window. He’d abandoned his predator stance, the gun tucked into the back of his jeans. As Sam watched, Dean threw his head back and laughed.

            Emboldened by his nonchalance, Sam crept into the living room, keeping out of sight of the windows. Muffled voices made their way to his ears, Dean’s and another’s, deeper, but familiar in its warmth. Sam moved to crouch by the window to the right of the door, wiping a smudge off the glass. Bobby clapped a hand on Dean’s shoulder and returned the smile. Dean hefted a box onto his hip. Behind them, the door to Bobby’s truck stood ajar. Sam pressed his ear to the pane to listen.

            “You sure you boy’s don’t need anything? Ain’t much more’n dried goods in there.”

            “We’re fine, Bobby. Dad left us a little money.” Dean moved the box to his other hip, biceps bulging from the weight.

            “And how quickly did you and Sam blow it on beer and bubblegum?” Bobby asked. Dean laughed, showing all his teeth, and Sam fell in love with him all over again. “Speaking of, where is that boy?”

            “Sleeping.” Dean answered quick, too quick, but Bobby didn’t seem to notice. He quirked an eye and took in Dean’s half-dressed state.

            “Uh huh. Did you let him get any rest, or did you keep him up half the night?” Even from where he hid, Sam could see the blush spread across Dean’s face. He fumbled with the box, stammering.

            “Wha—Bobby, I—”

            “I’m not your daddy, boy, you don’t got to lie to me. I could smell the sex on you halfway down the mountain. I hope you ain’t leave her in there waiting.”

            Dean let out a breath, and Sam saw his shoulders slump with relief. He barked out a weak laugh, shaking his head.

            “Yeah, no, no, yeah she drove back early this morning. Had to go to church.”

            “It’s Thursday.”

            “The super religious ones are always the freakiest, am I right?” Dean grinned, and Bobby rolled his eyes.

            “One of these days, boy, I swear…” Bobby turned towards the truck, then stopped. “I almost forgot.” He reached into his vest, and pulled out a bent, manila envelope. “This came in the mail.” He dropped it in the box. Dean stared at it, his face unreadable. He did not look up when Bobby climbed into the driver’s seat. He leaned out as he turned the car around. “Wish I could stay, but there’s a haunting down in Charlotte I gotta take care of. Give Sam my love, I’ll try and swing by on my way back if I can.”

            Dean nodded, not really listening. Sam watched the truck fade into the forest, its taillights swallowed up by the leaves. He waited till the crunch of the tires could no longer be heard before stepping out onto the porch.

            “What’d Bobby want?”  Sam asked. Dean squinted up at him, backlit by the sun. His mouth turned down in a frown. He stared at his brother. Sam’s skin itched.

            “Nothing. Just dropping off some supplies, making sure we ain’t starvin’ to death.” Dean shouldered past Sam, setting the box of canned goods on the counter. Sam followed, peeking inside. He was so close their thighs brushed when Dean spun around. The breath left him in a rush, eyes lingering over the naked expanse of Sam’s chest, down to his half-hard cock, snug in his boxers. Sam heard when Dean swallowed. “Think you could whip us up some breakfast? I’m going to go grab a shower.” Dean made a show of lifting his arm and sniffing, miming exaggerated disgust. “I stink.”

            “Sure, Dean.”  Sam turned to grab a pan out the cupboard, and when he looked back Dean was gone. He heard a door open and shut, some ruffling, then the squeak of a faucet and gushing water.  Sam fried them up a couple eggs and emptied the box, putting away cans of beans and tins of condensed milk. Dean must have taken the envelope, since Sam didn’t see it. He assumed Dean had special ordered an issue of _Buxom Blondes_ , which would explain his sudden urge to shower. Sam pretended the thought didn’t sting.

            Dean came out just as Sam served up the eggs. His hair was slicked back, darker than usual, his clean shirt clinging to his still-damp chest. He smiled, sniffing the air.

            “Smells good.”

            By the time Sam sat down, Dean had nearly finished. He practically licked the plate clean, sitting back with an appreciative hand draped over his belly.

            “Geez, Dean, did you even chew?” Sam sopped up a piece of yolk with a hunk of toast. “You’re lucky you didn’t choke.”

            “You’d’ve saved me.” Dean’s million dollar smile faltered, just for a second. Sam saw the cracks in the mask. Dean leaned forward on his elbows, leveling Sam with a serious stare. “You would’ve, right Sam? You wouldn’t leave me?”

            Sam froze, fork halfway to his mouth. Something in Dean’s voice sent ice water rushing through his veins. He pushed his plate aside, reaching across the table to take Dean’s hand. He jerked, almost trying to pull his hand away, but Sam held fast. He stared Dean down till his brother returned his gaze. Beneath his thumb, Dean’s pulse raced.

            “I’ll always save you, Dean. Even if it kills me. You know that, don’t you?”

            For many minutes, Dean said nothing. They sat perfectly still, staring at the other, like they were carved from stone. At length, Dean flipped his palm, intertwining their fingers. He squeezed, once, before standing. He grabbed the dishes and dropped them in the sink.

            As he washed them, Sam watched, studying the lines of his back, unable to shake the thought that something of spectacular importance had just transpired, but for the life of him he could not say what.


	7. Stake Out My Heart

            Sam sits in the passenger seat, cup of coffee between his knees, saying nothing. Dean drinks his coffee and it’s so hot it burns his tongue. Sam listens to his hiss of pain, his quiet grumbling, but says nothing. He sips from the Styrofoam cup, the bitter taste running down his throat. It’s piss poor, even by their standards, but they’ll need it to stay awake.

            They’re parked outside 2284 Kingsland Drive, on the south side of Biloxi, the home of Nina Larson, recently divorced. Had it not been for her heated conversation with her lawyer—which Sam had overheard while grabbing them lunch from the diner—they might not have stumbled upon her until it was too late. It’s still a long shot, with no guarantee the ghost would show, but they had to try. They couldn’t spend all day cooped up in the motel, and all their research had led them to dead ends.

            Dean shifts in his seat, fingers tapping against his cup. Sam shoots him a glance out of the corner of his eye. He turns towards the window, peering up at the house. He downs the dregs of his coffee, sets it down in the cup holder.

            The tension threatens to choke him. He can feel it with each breath, like a fist around his heart. It’s palpable, looming over them like a shadow. He tries to catch Dean’s eye in the rearview, but his brother has his gaze fixed in front of him. Sam wouldn’t be able to hear him breathe if it weren’t so quiet. He barely moves, still as a statue.

            They’ve barely spoken all day. Dean woke up first; the sound of his shower roused Sam from sleep. He’d rinsed off while Dean went to get them coffee and a couple of breakfast sandwiches. They ate in silence. Neither of them could muster up the courage to talk about last night. Sam wanted to know if Dean remembered her name, afraid that he did. All morning they moved about each other with a wariness they hadn’t felt since Sam first came back from Stanford. They were worse than strangers. They acted like the other was an animal too long caged, worried he’d strike as soon as his back was turned.

            Sam could barely stand it—he felt an ulcer burning its way through his stomach. He counted the minutes till he could reasonably offer to go grab lunch. The deep breath he took as soon as he stepped outside felt like the first one all day. Then came the screaming phone call, Sam trying to console a crying Nina, hurrying back to warn Dean. They spent the rest of the day gathering supplies, researching her address, doing their best to come up with a strategy without speaking.

            Sam rolls his neck and checks his watch. Eight past midnight. They’d been waiting for over three hours already with no sign. Despite the relative cool outside, the air inside the Impala feels muggy. He thinks about opening a window, but reconsiders.

            “I’m going to get out, stretch my legs.” He waits, but Dean makes no show of having heard him.

            The breeze brushes his hair, and Sam closes his eyes to savor it. He shuts the car door and leans back against it. He jiggles his legs, one then the other, encouraging blood back into his feet. He stretches his arms up overhead, hearing a _pop_ in his spine. He looks over his shoulder when Dean’s door opens and closes. He leans against the opposite side, his back to Sam.

            Clouds move across the moon. Shadows dance on the street in slow waltzes, passing over the car, casting them into deeper darkness. Sam hazards a glance at the back of Dean’s head.

            “So what, you think this is a bust?” He tries for light, jovial even, but his heart’s not in it. “Maybe we give it another hour before packing it in? Grab some pie from that 24-hour diner over on Malmont?”

            “Why don’t you go eat Tommy’s pie?” Dean’s voice is low and gruff, spitting out the words without looking at Sam. His shoulders hunch up around his ears, but not from the cold. If he listens, Sam thinks he can hear him grind his teeth.

            Anger flares up, hot and heady in Sam’s belly. His jaw tightens and his hands ball into fists. He rounds the car, feet slapping puddles from the brief afternoon shower. He feels water splash the cuff of his pants, but can’t bring himself to care. Dean eyes him without turning his head, arms crossed in front of his chest. Sam stands a couple feet back, hands by his side, shaking. He does his best to keep his voice low and level.

            “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The wind blows hair across his face, but he doesn’t reach up to brush it back. It carries the faint smell of roses from a neighboring garden. If things were different, Sam would call this romantic. If things were different, he’d wrap his fingers into Dean’s shirt, would pull him close and kiss him. As it were, it’s all he can do not to slug him.

            “You know damn well what I mean.” Dean pushes off the car, finally looking at Sam. He sneers, top lip curled up, nose wrinkled, like he’s just stepped in dog shit. “Couldn’t get enough last night, so why don’t you run off and grab seconds?” Dean’s not shouting, but just barely. He’s wide-eyed, muscles of his neck pulled taut.

            Sam staggers back a step, unprepared for Dean’s aggression, but he finds his balance, blood pumping hot in his ears. He runs his tongue over his teeth, feels the point of his incisors press into the meat of it. “You’re one to talk.” He’s smiling, can feel it in his cheeks, but there’s no joy in his eyes, only a dull rage. “What was her name, Dean? Hmm? Did you fuck her in the backseat or did you wait till you got back to our motel room?”  He’s quiet enough to make Dean lean in to listen. There’s an edge to his voice, sharp and cutting as the knife tucked into his belt. One wrong word and he’ll bleed. “Where do you get off accusing—”

            “I saw you two!” Dean’s voice echoes down the street. He jabs a finger at Sam’s chest, the nail half-chewed, the flesh around it raw and red. “I saw the way he looked at you. And you just ate it up.” Dean looks like he could spit—or cry. When he looks back at Sam, it is not with his brother’s eyes. These are the eyes of a stranger, brimming with disgust. “God, when I think about the shit you let him do to you…”

            “It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done to me,” Sam says. Dean snaps his face up to look at Sam. “Not half as much.”

            Dean stills, a wounded look in his eye. His mouth seems frozen around a word. He’s off balance, and Sam swells with triumph.

            Emboldened, Sam steps forward, raising his voice. “And besides, you went off with her first. You were practically drooling over her the second you laid eyes on her. So how the fuck are you going to sit up on your high horse and talk to me about who I choose to fuck?”

            Dean seethes, quiet and controlled, a storm just before breaking. Sam watches his fingers curl into a fist and readies himself for a blow that never comes. Sam’s sorry for it, would have relished the pain of contact. He wants Dean to hit him, to split his lip and bust open his ribs. He wants Dean to want to hurt him, to leave a mark. He wants proof that Dean feels something for him.

            “It’s just like in Boone.” When Dean finally speaks, it’s quiet, more to himself than to Sam. “All your bullshit reasons and demands. _Fuck_.” Dean chuckles, shaking his head and looking up at the sky. “It’s just the same bullshit all over again.”

            It stings, remembering, and Sam’s mind shies away as if burnt on a hot pan. But the words come tumbling out regardless. “You want to talk about bullshit?” Sam feels drunk, heady with the rush of emotions too long kept under lock and key. Everything spills out in a rush, the floodgates busted to all hell. “How about refusing to touch me unless we were at home with all the doors locked? About the time I tapped your shoulder in the gas station and you knocked over a Dale Earnhardt display trying to get away from me?” Dean has his eyes fixed on the asphalt, shoulders up by his ears. “Or how about the fact we have to pretend we sleep in separate beds whenever we check into a new motel? I’m so fucking _tired_ of pushing the beds together, Dean.” Dean blurs from the tears in Sam’s eyes. “I’m so tired of pushing.”

            Dean nods, chin bobbing just an inch, staring off at the ground between his feet. He pushes back off the car, makes a slow circle around it. Sam follows him with his eyes, waiting. When Dean finally turns to look at him, the lines of his face sag. He looks tired down to the bone.

            “I tried, Sam. Truly I did. I—” Something breaks in Dean’s voice, something wet and fragile. “I wanted to be who you needed me to be, but Sam, I—I can’t. I just can’t.”

            Sam tries to hold onto the anger roiling in his chest, but he feels his heart weaken at the cracked sob threatening to shatter Dean. His fingers itch to reach out, to hold and touch and console, but he digs his nails into his palm. He squeezes his fist so hard his wrist aches.

            “You gave up.” Sam’s voice sounds weak, even to his own ears, balanced on the precipice of despair, but he pushes on. He watches the glow from a streetlamp over Dean’s shoulder. “Before it even began, you gave up. You never—you never wanted it to be this. From the start, you never wanted this.”

            “ _No_.” It comes out half a sob and louder than either of them was expecting. Sam makes himself look Dean in the eye. “Don’t you tell me what I want. What I’ve always—” Dean bites back the word, swallows it. Sam can see the muscles in his jaw clench. “You were the one that went away, Sammy. Not me. You were the one that left.”

            “Why don’t I leave again?”

            It surprises Sam more than Dean, hearing it out loud. The thought had lived so long in the wretched corners of his mind, but he’d never once dared speak it to life, not even when he was alone. It burns his tongue; his lips tingle. He can’t bring himself to look at Dean, can’t see the stunned pain in his eyes, so he can’t know if Dean’s saying something, _anything_ , not over the roar of his own heart crying out. It hurts, even the thought, but he’s come this far—he can’t take it back now.

            “M-maybe I, maybe I need to head off on my own. Maybe this…maybe this can’t work like we thought it could.” He feels sick, worries he’ll puke between his boots. Something vile lurches up his throat. He grits his teeth and swallows it back, swallows all the words screaming— _no please sorry I’d never never never_. He’s done it now, crossed the Rubicon, taken the plunge, kicked the chair out. He’s left hanging on a noose of his own design.

            It’s a long time before Dean says anything. The wind picks up, brushing Sam’s hair into his eyes. He wishes suddenly he’d taken up smoking, or knitting, anything to keep his hands from tearing off their own skin. The world grows dim as clouds drift across the moon. Dean’s voice comes out of the darkness.

            “If that’s what you want, Sammy.” It’s quiet, the hurt buried under so many layers of denial Sam’s surprised Dean’s voice doesn’t crack and break beneath the weight. Sam dares to dart a look, but Dean’s turned his face to the sky. The clouds part and his face glows lunar. His eyes shimmer, milky and wet. “I’m not going to fight you.”

            It’s defeat, the heavy tone in his voice. It’s surrender, and it breaks Sam’s heart.


	8. Where You Must Descend

I would like to watch you sleeping,  
which may not happen.  
I would like to watch you,  
sleeping. I would like to sleep  
with you, to enter  
your sleep as its smooth dark wave  
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent  
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves  
with its watery sun & three moons  
towards the cave where you must descend,  
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver  
branch, the small white flower, the one  
word that will protect you  
from the grief at the center  
of your dream, from the grief  
at the center. I would like to follow  
you up the long stairway  
again & become  
the boat that would row you back  
carefully, a flame  
in two cupped hands  
to where your body lies  
beside me, and you enter  
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air  
that inhabits you for a moment  
only. I would like to be that unnoticed  
& that necessary.

Margaret Atwood, _Variations on the Word Sleep_

 

Sam skirted around the kitchen table, giving Dean as wide a berth as possible. Sam could tell he was in one of his moods. He’d been quiet all morning. He stepped soft and sure-footed, like he was on a hunt. More than once Sam turned, gasping, to find Dean standing behind him. After breakfast he retreated to his room to read, wanting to give Dean some space.

Things had been different the past few days. Dean had spent every night since Bobby had stopped by in his own bed. The heat had ratcheted up, and he said Sam ran a little too hot to sleep next to with neither a fan nor A/C. True, Sam woke most mornings in a puddle of his own sweat, but the distance tore at him, even if it was less than twenty feet. It was not just when they were sleeping that Sam felt Dean receding from him. He didn’t flinch from his touch, nothing as extreme as that, but he stopped leaning into it. Dean held himself stiff and immobile as stone.

Sam couldn’t bring himself to look at the calendar. He did his best to live in a timeless present, but reality lurked on the edge of his mind. He knew Dad would be back by the end of the week at the latest, knew that this, whatever had developed between him and Dean, would retreat before their father’s encroaching approach. The thought gnawed at his stomach, bitter and biting as an ulcer. When he coughed he expected blood.

He looked up when Dean knocked on the doorframe. He leaned onto his shoulder. Sam put a finger between the pages, stamping down the swell of hope. Despite himself his eyes lingered over the flash of hip from where Dean’s shirt had ridden up. His gaze felt leaden when he dragged it to Dean’s face.

“Busy?” Dean cocked an eyebrow, nodding his chin towards Sam’s book.

“No!” Sam scrambled to sit up, book falling to the floor in his haste. “I mean, not really. What’s up?”

Dean moved into the room, nodding to himself. He hunched down to peer out the window, considering the wind through the leaves. He stuck his bottom lip out and turned to look up at the sky. When he faced Sam, the smile spread across his face made the noonday sun seem dim.

“I was thinking it’s the perfect weather for a picnic. Whadda’ye say?”

Sam nodded so hard he thought he’d give himself whiplash. All the words caught in his throat, choking him. His heart swelled to bursting, beating against his ribs. Dean smiled wider, flashing impossibly white teeth, and everything in the universe seemed right and good and true.

Dean left to head into town—they’d run dangerously low on food. They probably had enough to scrape by till Dad came back, but Dean said he wanted to go all out, make it special. Sam wanted to ask what for, but was afraid of the answer.

At night, staring up at the ceiling, he did his best to prepare himself for life after Dean, after their Dad came to collect them and they went back to being nothing more than brothers. The thought tore at him—more often than not he woke with his heart in his throat, eyes fogged with tears. Sam honestly believed it’d kill him. Not in the Austen sense, not of anything as romantic as a broken heart. He knew the map of a human body, knew the secret places where a line drawn in razor would open and never close. He pushed the thought from his mind, but it swirled in the dark recesses, circling.

The house boomed with quiet as soon as Dean had left. Sam busied himself scavenging for suitable blankets, tossing a selection into a pile in the middle of the living room floor. He set to work prepping sandwiches, collecting plates and utensils. The monotony dulled his thoughts. He entered a flow, hands moving without conscious effort. It was late by the time Dean came back. Sam had not noticed the time passing. He squinted against the orange glare of sun low on the horizon.

“Sammy!” Dean called from the truck. Sam hurried out, scrambling to catch the bag of groceries Dean tossed him. “Help me put some of this away. We’re wasting daylight!”

He’d bought a little extra than they needed, perhaps doubting Dad would be back on time. The thought was both a comfort and a knife twisted in Sam’s gut. They didn’t have a basket, so they stuffed the now empty grocery bags with still-cold beers, chips, and the sandwiches Sam had prepared. Dean had bought a sheet cake ( _It was on sale!_ ) and a bowl of fruit salad. Sam tossed the blankets in the back of the truck and stuffed the food down by his feet. Dean rolled the engine on before he’d even slammed the door shut.

“Where are we headed?” Sam asked.

Instead of answering, Dean grinned and turned the radio up. They drove past the turn they normally took to head into town and instead drove higher up into the mountains. The trees on either side of the dirt road thinned, splashes of blue appearing in the gaps between their branches. As soon as a large enough opening appeared, Dean turned them off the path.

Sam jumped and jostled over every bump, and was briefly thankful for the fact that Dean hadn’t fucked him in the past couple of days. At last they approached a clearing which butted up to a precipice. Slowly, Dean eased the car around and backed it up against the edge of the cliff. He wiggled his eyebrows at Sam’s questioning look and stepped out without a word.

Sam followed, eyeing Dean, who stood akimbo, hands on his hips. His head thrown back, Dean closed his eyes and breathed deep, savoring the thin mountain air. Sam inched to peer over the back of the truck. The mountain tumbled away below them, thick coating of forest covering its side. In the distance, similar peeks poked at the smattering of clouds. The sun burned dimly between them, full and juicy as the orange Sam had eaten for breakfast. Behind him he heard a car door open and shut. The wheels squeaked as Dean hoisted himself into the bed of the truck.

“Need a hand?” Dean offered. Sam grabbed his forearm and allowed himself to be lifted up, draping one leg and then the other over the side panel. He helped Dean spread the blankets out, then set about unpacking the food. They settled with their backs against the rear of the driver’s cabin, faces towards the majesty before them. Dean leaned into his arms folded behind his head and whistled long and sweet. “How’s that for a view, Sammy?”

Dean drank in the sunset, so he could not see Sam staring at him. Tears bubbled in the corner of his eyes, his heart solidly lodged in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a choked whine managed to slip out. Dean swung his face around and froze, the smile sliding off his mouth as his eyes widened in concern.

“Shit, Sammy, are you—”

“Fine,” Sam managed, voice tiny and broken, “I’m fine.” He sniffed, digging the heel of his palm into his eyes. “Really. This,” he turned to take in the mountains, ablaze with dying sunlight, the trees verdant with light, “this is perfect. Thank you.”

Dean swallowed, lost somewhere in Sam’s eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he laid a hand on Sam’s knee. His thumb traced the seam of his jeans. He nodded, once, and turned to grab a sandwich. He stuffed half of it into his mouth at once, turning to look out at the view. The light caught the shimmer in his eyes, but Sam didn’t mention it.

As they ate the tension ebbed, and by the time the sky had darkened to a lush purple they were laughing and shoving the other’s shoulder. The beers helped, and a small, aluminum mountain grew by their feet. Sam ran his tongue over his teeth, cheeks flushed red, as he tossed another onto the pile. Dean licked icing off his fingertip—they’d forgotten plates, and ate the cake with their hands. The sugary burn at the back of Sam’s throat tasted like Dean.

The sky above them exploded with stars, dimmed by the luminescent swell of the moon. They lay head to foot, bellies stuffed, while Dean pointed out constellations. Sam thought to tell him that no, there was no constellation called Dickticus, but he didn’t want to spoil his fun. When Dean pointed to the Big Dipper and called it the Soup Ladle, they both snorted with laughter, rolling around the bed of the truck, clutching their sides till tears streamed down their faces.

A gentle quiet fell over them as their breathing evened out. Sam wheezed, rubbing at the sore muscles of his stomach. He wiped his face; his cheeks ached from smiling. He heard the truck resettle and turned to watch Dean prop himself up on one elbow. He carded his fingers through Sam’s hair, trailed them down to cup his face. He tilted Sam’s chin up, and lowered his mouth into a kiss.

He tasted like beer and cake, like cheap mustard and stale potato chips. He tasted like summer and sweat and sunlight. He tasted like home. He tasted like love. Sam opened his mouth, and Dean dipped his tongue inside. Their lips brushed and moved against the other, teasing and testing. Sam nipped at Dean’s bottom lip and got a growl in response. He fisted a hand in Dean’s shirt, pulling his brother atop him. Their hips pressed together. The weight of him squeezed the air out of Sam’s lungs and into Dean’s mouth.

Sam slid a hand under Dean’s shirt, pressing his palm to the small of Dean’s back, encouraging the smooth roll of his hips. Sam felt the stiff swell of Dean’s cock nudging his thigh. He moaned and arched into it, Dean’s mouth a fiery brand against the side of his neck. He clawed his nails down in angry, red lines, begging for more. Dean thumbed at a nipple through the thin cotton of Sam’s shirt.

“Sam.” Dean’s lips, kiss-wet and swollen, whispered against his ear. “Sam, wait.” Sam’s hand stilled on the button of Dean’s jeans. He blinked, brushing the hair out of his face. Dean sat back on his heels, thighs splayed open, and Sam couldn’t help but notice the bulge straining against his zipper.

“What’s wrong?” A sudden anxiety gripped him. Dean stared down at his hands, cradled between his knees. The muscles of his jaw twitched, and he worried a frayed strand of blanket between thumb and forefingers. Sam sat up, willing his heart to slow its maddening beat. “Dean?”

“I thought maybe,” Dean mumbled, chin dipped in towards his chest. He wet his lips and started over. “Maybe if you want, I mean.” He sighed and turned to stare off into the distance. Sam laid a tentative hand on his arm. The skin felt warm beneath the pads of his fingers.

“What is it? Dean, whatever it is…” He trailed off, giving Dean’s arm a reassuring squeeze instead. Slowly, Dean turned to look at him, holding him in the verdant stillness of his gaze.

He kissed him, tangling his fingers in the long strands of Sam’s hair, crashing their mouths together. He tore at Sam’s shirt, tugging it up and over his head before tossing it onto the ground. It took Sam half a second to catch up, and then he was tearing at the button of Dean’s jeans, shoving his pants down his thighs and kneading his cock through the cum-stained cotton of his boxers. Dean groaned into his mouth, bucking into Sam’s hand.

They shed their clothes with abandon, hurling them overhead in their haste to taste flesh unimpeded. Sam’s mouth glistened as it moved over Dean’s shoulder, trailing down to suck a pert nipple in between his lips. Dean fisted a handful of hair and pressed him in closer. Teeth scraped over aureole, and Dean swore. He kissed his way down to nuzzle in the dark curls above Dean’s cock, tongue wagging over the pearl of pre-cum beaded at the tip.

The taste of him filled Sam’s mouth. He moaned as his lips fluttered around the base, tongue darting to lick at his balls. He came up coughing and sputtering, eager to get his mouth back around him, when Dean pulled him up by his hair. He smashed their mouth together hard enough Sam though he’d leave bruises. He held him just out of reach, eyes searching.

Dean let go and rolled over onto his hands and knees, sinking to rest on his elbows. Sam watched, uncomprehending, as Dean pushed his ass up and back. He pillowed his face in the crook of his arms, and his voice came out muffled when he spoke.

“What?” Sam asked, too lost in the swell of Dean’s ass to understand. Dean lifted his face and turned to look back over his shoulder, but wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes.

“I said there’s lube in my jacket pocket.” He nodded his chin to the mound of their clothes and once more buried his face. The muscles of his shoulders tensed, back corded as he waited. Sam sat back on his heels, heart thundering against his ribs. His pulse quickened at what Dean was asking, what he was offering. This secret part of himself…Sam had never let himself dream of it, too sure of Dean’s refusal. He reached out and cupped Dean’s ass, thumb tracing a faint splash of freckles. Dean looked back at him, mouth pulled down in a frown. He sat up quickly, brushing Sam off. “Never mind, this was stupid, it was a joke, I was just kid—”

Sam grabbed his face and kissed him, swallowing his protests. He eased him down to lay on his back, bracketed by his brother’s thighs. Sam ran his hands down Dean’s chest, up and under his legs, moving him, spreading him open and nestling in his lap. He reached blindly, groping till his fingers wrapped around the cracked leather of the jacket’s sleeve. He popped the cap of the lube once he found it, slathering a dollop on his first two fingers. When he pressed them to Dean’s hole, he jumped.

“Shh,” Sam whispered against Dean’s lips, “it’s okay. It’s just me.” Sam teased the tip of a finger inside, and Dean grimaced into the kiss.

“I don’t want none of that girlfriend shit.” Dean twisted his face to peer down between their bodies. He saw Sam’s wrist behind the swell of his cock and balls. He let out a choked sort of groan when Sam slide all the way in to the second knuckle.

“You sure about that?” Sam brushed the pad of his finger over Dean’s prostate and did not fail to notice how his cock jerked, drippling another string of pre-cum. “Have you ever done this before?” Sam inched deeper, his second finger rubbing at the flare of Dean’s hole.

“No.” Dean huffed, offended. “Of course not.” He tightened his grip on Sam’s arm, fingers biting bruises into his bicep. He held fast to the back of Sam’s neck, holding his brother close, curled over him, their faces so close their eyes crossed when they tried to meet.

“Well, _I_ have.” Sam slid the second finger in alongside the first and Dean’s eyes fluttered close in a moan. “So you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that this will help.” He pushed in to the knuckle, Dean wrapped tight around his fingers, and let him get used to the feeling. His chest heaved, face flush and mouth wet. It took every ounce of will Sam had not to come right then and there.

Dean shuddered when Sam started to move, slipping his fingers halfway out before sliding them back in. He gave his wrist an experimental twist, grinning and doing it again when Dean threw his head back and moaned. He started to move faster, pumping through the wet squelch, nudging Dean’s prostate again and again. Dean’s grip on his arm started to hurt, but Sam didn’t stop. He watched the way Dean’s eyelids fluttered, half-lidded, like he was drunk, watched the muscle of his stomach clench and release, watched his cock jerk and throb and spill translucent strands across his stomach.

Sam’s own cock bobbed against Dean’s thigh, swollen and red, the tip slick with pre-cum. Gradually his hand slowed and stilled. When he slipped free, Sam could have sworn he heard Dean whine. He kissed him raw, quickly coating his cock with a thick handful of lube. He wiped his hand on the blanket and grabbed Dean’s thigh. He pushed his knees into his knee, lifting Dean’s ass up and off the bed of the truck. He scooted forward till the head of his dick pushed against Dean’s hole, poised to slip in. Sam darted a glance to Dean’s face, saw him chewing his bottom lip bloody.

“I’ll go slow,” Sam promised because he knew Dean would never ask himself. Dean gasped when he pushed in. Sam soothed his hand down Dean’s thigh as he inched deeper. Dean spit and swore and screwed his eyes shut. Sam stopped halfway, muscles in his legs trembling from the effort. He braced a hand on the truck bed up by Dean’s head. He cupped his cheek and traced the line of his jaw with his thumb.

“You waiting for an invitation?” Dean tried for gruff, but it came out strained, voice high and thin. Sam widened his eyes in question. “I’m not a goddamn princess, Sammy. Fuck me like you mean it.”

Sam pushed in to the hilt, and Dean arched, head lolling back to slam against the foot of the truck. He reached up, but Dean grabbed his hips and pulled him close, wiggling beneath him until Sam got the hint and started moving. Slow at first, the encouragement spilling out of Dean’s mouth quickly had him snapping his hips hard enough to make his balls slap against Dean’s ass.

“Fuck, Sammy, _Jesus_ , what’re you, part horse? Oh, _fuck_ , fuck, yeah, God, do—do that again.” Dean clawed at Sam’s back, tangling fingers in his hair and pulling their mouths together in a punishing kiss. His breath puffed warm against Sam’s cheek. “Don’t stop,” Dean whispered against Sam’s mouth. “Please don’t stop.” He clung to his brother, pulling him closer, deeper. “I want—” Dean choked on the words, his eyes gone cross, “—I want to feel you, never want to stop feeling you. I want to remember.”

Sam’s head swam. His nose filled with the heady scent of their sex, sweat and spit and slick. He couldn’t believe what Dean was saying, that he was saying it to him, that this was real and truly happening. He hunched over Dean’s body, buried his face in the warmth of Dean’s neck. A hand cupped the back of his head, holding him close. His mouth moved against flushed flesh, tasting salt on skin. Sam shuddered and screwed his eyes shut, worried he wouldn’t last much longer.

“Come on, Sammy, come on.” Dean barked beside his ear, gruff and commanding, his other hand a vice on Sam’s hip. His fingers burned bruises into bone, urging him on, begging him _harder faster more all of you_. Sam felt Dean tighten around his cock, felt his tongue lapping at the shell of his ear. “Give it to me, Sammy, please, I want it, I want you, I want you to come in me.”

And just like that Sam tumbled over the edge. He spilled out into Dean’s body with a shudder, his back corded and his toes scraping against the bed of the truck. His arms shook with convulsions, but Dean wouldn’t let him hold still. He rocked his hips on the twitching length of Sam’s cock, milking every drop out of him. Sam was only vaguely aware of Dean’s hand between them, whipping furiously at his own dick. He looked down in time to see him shoot across his belly, smattering their chests with tacky white.

For a long moment neither of them moved. Sam lay plastered onto Dean’s chest, breathing labored. With each gasp, Dean’s chest rose and fell, lifting Sam with it. Light touches trailed down his spine. Hair stuck to his forehead, and his tongue felt suddenly too big for his mouth. At length, Sam softened and slipped out of Dean’s body. Though he’d never admit it, Sam would have sworn he heard Dean whimper when he did.

They rearranged themselves, Sam’s head pillowed on Dean’s shoulder, a blanket pulled halfway up their bodies against the night’s chill. He traced nonsense onto Dean’s skin, his thumb circling the brown quarter of his nipple. Though his eyes were closed, Sam knew Dean wasn’t sleeping. His fingers played in his hair, scratching at his scalp.

It was the most perfect Sam had ever felt, the happiest he’d ever been.

“That was—”

“Yeah.” Dean crooked a finger under Sam’s chin and tilted his head up to kiss him. “Don’t get used to it though. That’s a fucking WMD you’ve got hanging between your legs.” Dean resettled, shifting his hips with a grimace. “Fuck, I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Sam teased, and Dean shoved his shoulder and scoffed. “That’s what you were saying with my big, fat cock in you.”  
Even in the dark, Sam knew Dean could tell he was grinning, and was determined to kiss it off his face.

Sam’s lips were kiss-swelled, plump and wet. His thighs ached, and tacky patches of dried cum clumped in the hair above his crotch. He shivered as the breeze blew through the treetops, and Dean hugged him a little closer. He turned to stare up at the sky. A sky of stars winked down at them, the moon almost bright enough to see by.

Dean looked up too. His face cast a pale silhouette against the moonlit trees. Sam’s heart stopped. He studied the mountains of his cheekbones, the pale, pink rivers of his lips. He drank his fill of him, knowing soon the cup would run dry.

Dad would be back any day now. Sam felt his shadow looming in the corner of his room as he tossed and turned. He could not think about it without a clench of anxious dread, near sick to his stomach. Even now he stamped it down, buried the thought six feet under, but tears still sprang to his eyes.

Had they been at the cabin—replete with its own ancient tongue of creaks and moans—Dean never would have heard the breath Sam took, that single, pained gasp. But here, in the votive silence of the night, it cracked like a shot across the void. The mountain carried it all the way down to the valley.

Dean lifted onto an elbow, knitted brow turned down to Sam. Sam buried his face in his shoulder, made to brush his hair out of his eyes and wiped them clean, but Dean saw. Gentle yet firm fingers made Sam look him in the eye.

“Sammy?” Sam shook his head, tried to look away, but Dean held him. “Sammy, what is it?”

“I’m just—Dad…” All the words jammed his mouth at once. His lips moved, but nothing came out.

Dean rolled onto his back. An arm looped over Sam’s shoulder and hugged him close. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Sam sucked in air through his nose, mouth clenched tight. He clung to Dean , fingers bruising his ribs, but it was the only thing keeping him from shaking. Every muscle in Dean’s body was coiled and tense, the lines of him hard and unrelenting as stone. He tremored with some great, internal struggle. When he spoke, his voice threatened to crack.

“Sammy, what…what if we didn’t stop?”

Sam froze. Only his eyes moved to stare at the blur of Dean on the edge of his vision. He didn’t dare speak. He willed his heart to settle, to quiet, wanting to savor every word.

“What if…” Dean whispered, “what if we kept going? Us.” He squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “This.” “Sammy, I…I don’t want to stop.”

“I don’t want to stop either. Dean, I—I don’t ever want to stop.”

It was a whisper, but Dean heard him. He moved to stare down at Sam. He cupped his face. His thumb stroked his cheek. His eyes brimmed with love.

Dean kissed him like a man dying. No—like a man living, for the first time in his life, truly living. Sam let himself be folded into Dean’s chest, let his eyes overflow with tears, let his mouth be kissed numb.

 

The sun was warm on his face. He blinked open his eyes at a cotton candy sky—the pink of early morning coated in orange. Dean lay draped across his chest, a line of drool tickling Sam’s nipple. Delicate needles tingled his arm where it lay trapped between their bodies.

The night before seemed a dream. Sam told himself again and again that it’d been real, that Dean had meant what he’d said, but it seemed too good to be true. He traced reverent fingers along Dean’s jaw, tangled them in his mussed hair.

Dean shifted with a groan, mouth widening in a yawn. He blinked up at Sam, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He caught Sam staring and smiled. “See something you like, Sammy?” Dean ground his hips against Sam’s thigh, the morning swell of his cock hot against Sam’s skin.

“Yeah—you.”

The morning air swallowed the sounds they made as they rocked together. After, they cleaned themselves up and ate a breakfast of stale sandwiches and lukewarm beer. It tasted like a feast.

They dressed, and Sam saw to the garbage as Dean wandered into the woods to piss. Sam tied a knot in the plastic bag to keep anything from falling out and tossed it at the foot of the front seat.

“What’re we going to tell Dad?”

Dean froze, the bundle of blanket in his arms caught mid-fold. He narrowed his eyes and squinted at Sam, who leaned against the side of the truck.

“What’re you talking about? Tell Dad what?”

Sam combed a hand through his hair, chewing his bottom lip. “He’s going to want to know why we’ve decided to go off on our own. We have to have a good answer or he’ll never agree to it.”

Dean dropped the blankets back in the bed of the truck and stepped towards Sam. The line of his mouth was thin and hard as steel. “What makes you think we’re leaving Dad?”

Sam looked up from the root he’d been worrying with his toe of his shoe and caught Dean’s cold stare. “You said—last night…”

Sam saw the tremor in the corner of Dean’s mouth. “And I meant it, Sammy.” Dean grabbed his elbow, not rough, but strong. Sam leaned into the touch, letting out a breath he hadn’t know he’d been holding. “I meant every word. But Sam…we can’t leave Dad. He needs us.”

Sam blinked at him, uncomprehending. “How…but how can we…?” He waved a hand between them.

Dean offered a weak smile with a small laugh. “You know how Dad is. He only has eyes for the hunt. He’ll never notice if we’re careful. Besides, he leaves us on our own more often than not.” Dean slipped his arms around Sam’s waist, pulling him in close. “We’ll have plenty of opportunities for a little fun.”

Dean nibbled on the side of his neck, and Sam wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and sink into the sensation of Dean’s mouth moving against his throat, but he gripped Dean’s shoulders and pushed him back. “So you want to keep it a secret?”

“Well, yeah, Sammy, of course.” Dean gave a joyless chuckle, eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What, you want to tell Dad we’re fucking? _How was the hunt, oh by the way, Sir, Sam started sucking my dick while you were gone, what’s for dinner?_ ”

“No, I mean, not yet, eventually we can—”

“Not yet?” Dean’s voice rose, sharp, cutting him off. “Sam, not ever. Dad can never know. No one can ever know.” Dean still held him, but the embrace had lost all warmth, his arms gone stiff with restrained fury.

Sam’s throat tightened as he fought back tears. “Why?” He choked out the question, but Dean didn’t answer. “Dean, why not? Tell me why not.”

Dean let go of him, stepping back. He shook his head, incredulous disbelief scratched onto his face. “Why not? Did you have a stroke or something?” There was bite behind his words, voice growing louder and louder. “Sam, _this_ ,” he jabbed a finger between them, “is not something you go around talking about. It’s not normal.”

“Dean, nothing about our life is normal. Everything—” Sam swallowed a sob that threatened to break him, “—everything we do is a secret. I don’t…I can’t…not this too.” Dean’s jaw twitched. He turned away, nostrils flared. His breath thundered in the quiet. Sam reached out for his shoulder. “We don’t…we don’t have to tell Dad, not if you don’t want to. But Dean, we can—we can buy the car from him. We could hunt as a team, or…or we could find a little place somewhere. Get jobs. Live normal lives. No one…no one would know we’re brothers. They’d just think—”

Dean shrank from his touch as if burned. “Think what, Sam?” His words dripped with venom, caustic as acid. “Just think that we’re a couple fags? Is that what you want to be, Sam? The town queers?”

“Is that so bad?”

Dean grabbed fistfuls of Sam’s shirt, slamming him into the side of the truck. Sam gasped, more out of surprise than pain. Dean twisted his grip, held him pressed against the metal, face an inch from his. Sam searched his eyes and found a stranger, twisted with hate.

“I will _never_ be that. You hear me, Sammy? I will die before I become that.” He whispered, but each word cut like glass. Sam felt his arms shaking.

“I won’t be your secret.” It hurt, but Sam forced the words out. “I won’t.” Dean stilled, eyes gone wide with surprise. “Dean, I…I won’t. I’m sorry, but…I can’t. If you won’t…I don’t want it like this. I just can’t.”

Sam didn’t know what to expect. Anger, rage. Not the pained betrayal in Dean’s eyes. Certainly not for Dean to pull him off the truck, to twist and throw him onto the ground. Sam didn’t think Dean meant to hurt him—more likely just wanted to get him away, to prevent himself from hurting Sam—but Dean failed to notice the stone half-buried in the dirt. It caught the heel of Sam’s shoe, and he toppled over backwards. He reached out to catch himself, but the angle was all off, the ground rushing up too quick. He landed wrong, arm twisted beneath his body. He fell with his full weight on his wrist, and it snapped like a sprig of green wood over a knee.

The sound Sam made was more animal than human, primal and pained, ripped from his throat with claws. He rolled onto his back, clutching his arm to his chest as he writhed, vison blurred with sudden tears. His ears rang with his own cries, echoed by the birds pushed to flight as they fled from his cacophony.

“Sam! Sammy!” Dean was by him in a second. He made to grab Sam’s shoulder, but he twisted away, voice raw and ragged.

“Don’t! Don’t—don’t touch me.” The pain shooting up his arm numbed him to the shredded ache of his heart. He sniffed back a sob and stumbled to his feet. He wobbled, fell again to one knee, but Dean didn’t try to catch him, not when Sam stared him into stillness.

He rose on shaky legs, took one step, then another. Every jostle sent knives shooting up his arm. His hand had since gone numb, but his shoulder ached. Sam gritted his teeth and sucked down strained mouthfuls of air. He set off down the path, vaguely aware of Dean shouting behind him, but the only thing he could hear was the sound of his world crashing down around his ears.

 

The walk back should have taken no more than twenty minutes, but it was over an hour by the time Sam stumbled up the porch steps and into the dim shadows of the cabin. He’d had to stop every few minutes to rest his back against the trunk of a tree and catch his breath. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead. His shirt, damp with perspiration, clung to his chest. A slight tremor shook his right leg as he hobbled into the bathroom. He shut the door and slid down to the floor.

His head lolled against the cool grain of the wood. His eyes threatened to flutter shut, but Sam forced himself to sit up. With his good hand he pulled out a drawer, rummaging blindly till he pulled out their first-aid kit. He set it between his splayed thighs, tugging the zipper open with a hiss. He gathered gauze and bandages, kicking the rest of the bag away. He reached overhead and tugged down a towel from the shower rack. He twisted it into a corded braid and fit it between his teeth.

Sam sucked down a shaky breath through flared nostrils, mustering up as much nerve as he could. Gingerly, he wrapped his fingers around the swollen mess of his wrist. He gave a tentative squeeze. He groaned, throwing his head back into the door with a dull _thud_. Biting down, the moldy taste of towel pressed against his tongue as he set the break. In the quiet of the cabin, the _crunch_ of bone was almost enough to upend his stomach. His vision blurred as his head swam, and for a brief moment Sam worried he’d pass out. His hand shook as he unwound a length of gauze. He had nothing for a splint, so he wrapped it extra tight and prayed it would do.

Sam sat resting against the door for a long time. He slipped in and out of consciousness, troubled by fevered dreams. He knelt by the sink and splashed handfuls of cold water on his face. The tile felt cool against his skin, but he forced himself to stand and open the bathroom door. Leaning against the frame, he listened for any sound of movement. From the slant of sunlight against the far wall, Sam could tell the hour was late. He heard no sign of Dean.

Though he hadn’t eaten since that morning, the thought of food made Sam sick. He stumbled to his bedroom, not bothering to undress before collapsing into bed. He rolled up to stare at the ceiling, bandaged wrist cradled against his chest. The warped wood above him shifted and swelled, molding into fantastic shapes as darkness edged in on the corners of Sam’s vision.

He awoke to the sound of a car door slamming shut. A foul taste clung to the roof of his mouth. Sam spat as he sat up. A sudden rush of blood made him dizzy, and he reached out to steady himself. Instead of blanket, his fingers closed on stiff paper. Sam blinked his eyes open, flipping the manila envelope over. A heavy crease down the middle bisected his name, scrawled above Bobby’s address in Sioux Falls. On the top, left corner, a return address for California seemed dwarfed by the Stanford logo.

Sam slit it open with a pen knife, dumping the contents out onto his bed. Words like _Congratulations_ and _full ride_ danced across the page, but his eyes refused to focus. The front door swung open and shut, and Dad’s voice boomed.

“Dean? Sam? Where you boys at?”

Sam lurched to standing, stuffing the papers together under his pillow. He flung his door open to find John standing in the middle of the living room. A second later, Dean’s door opened. Even from here, Sam could smell the wave of whiskey each time he breathed.

John favored them each with a look, then turned on his heel. Sam heard the fridge open, followed by the snig of a beer can. He downed it in one go, crinkled the can, and tossed it into the sink. If he noticed Dean’s sorry state or Sam’s broken wrist, he made no mention.

“Hunt’s done. I got word of a banshee in Illinois. I want us on the road in ten.” He walked out without another word. Sam heard the Impala’s engine roar to life.

Neither of them moved. Sam gripped the wood of the doorframe hard enough to splinter, waiting. Dean lifted his eyes from the floor and slid them over Sam’s face.  
Bloodshot and red-ringed, he stared at him imploringly. Sam held his breath. His wrist throbbed. Then Dean drifted into his room and started packing.

Sam packed quickly, throwing his clothes into his duffle. He hid the letter at the bottom, and made no mention of it to either Dean or Dad. Within ten minutes, they were scaling down the mountain, Dean up front, Sam slouched in the back. No one spoke till they crossed the state line, and only then for Dad to tell them he was pulling over to piss. They drove through the night and straight on till morning.

A month later, packed bag slung over his shoulder, Sam walked out of the house they were renting and caught a bus to Palo Alto.

He didn’t speak to Dean for four years.


	9. 'Til Death

            The scream tears the night in half.

            Sam and Dean stand frozen—they hadn’t moved from where they’d stood, trapped in the other’s gravity. Both their heads turn to the house, now gone silent as the tomb.

            Dean takes off like a shot, Sam hot on his heels. The _crack_ of the door as Dean kicks it open breaks like thunder, loud as a gunshot. Sam reaches for the Beretta tucked into the back of his jeans.

            They go non-verbal, like they’d been trained. Dean signals, motions towards the stairs and heads up them. Sam stays below, making a slow circuit of the lower level.

            The walls sport a few pictures, but less than you’d expect. Sam doesn’t fail to notice the pale patches of off-color wallpaper where frames had until recently hung. The furnishing is modest, but quality. There also seems to be a few pieces missing, large gaps left in the living room, like someone had stopped moving halfway through.

            The floor shifts from hardwood to tile as Sam steps into the kitchen. Cabinets hang open, partially emptied of dishes. The fridge is strikingly bare, save for a take-out menu tacked to the front.

            Upstairs, something heavy thuds onto the floor.

            “Dean!” Sam yells, forgetting everything—his training, their argument—in a mad, panicked dash up the stairs. His footsteps pound, he grips the banister and hauls himself up.

            Top of the stairs, he swings right, left, right, searching. A slice of light spills out into the hallway from a door left ajar. With the point of his gun, Sam creaks the door open, peering in.

            The woman from the diner, Nina Larson, lays sprawled on the floor of her bedroom. Her nightgown fans wide and white on the floor.

            Sam kneels beside her, presses two fingers to the side of her neck. He feels a faint, but steady, pulse. He cups the back of her head, lifts her up to lean against the side of the bed.

            “Hey.” Sam shakes her gently, voice low and firm. “Hey! Stay with me.” He looks up to call for Dean and sees Tommy standing in front of him.

            He’s dressed like he was that night at the bar, but his eyes are all wrong—black and depthless. His mouth curls into a curl snarl, taunting and amused.

            Sam’s halfway to his feet when a supernatural force throws him back. He slams into the far wall, the breath knocked out of him. He crumbles to the ground with a wince.

            “Sam? Sammy!”

            Sam tries to cry out, to warn Dean, but only a weak, gasping noise comes out when he opens his mouth. Dean barrels into the doorway, shotgun raised. Tommy twists around without moving the lower half of his body. Dean fires off a shot just as he lifts his arm. There’s a rush of air, the sudden smell of gun powder, and an empty space where he once stood.

            Dean hurries towards him, but Sam shakes his head, sitting up, pointing instead to Nina Larson. He only hesitates for a second before dropping to a knee besides her.

            “She’s breathing.” Dean looks up at him, brows pulled together in a scowl. “We got to get her out of here before that thing—”

            “Dean!” Sam yells, too late, Tommy manifesting right behind him. Dean reaches for the shotgun, but he’s not quick enough. He flies through the air. His shoulder connects hard with the wall. He slumps to the floor in a heap.

            Sam struggles to his feet, firing wide shots as he lunges towards Dean. Tommy appears and disappears, always to the side of each shot. He’s halfway across the room, when Tommy snatches his arm, wrenching it back. Sam cries out in pain, shoulder twisted nearly to popping, and drops the gun. Just as he thinks his arm’s about to be ripped from its socket, Sam hears the cock of a shotgun, followed by the roar of buckshot.

            “Sammy, are you okay?” Dean hauls Sam up, loops an arm around his shoulders to keep him standing.

            “We’ve got—Nina—”

            “I got her, Sam, don’t worry.” Dean leaves Sam propped against the bed and picks Nina up, throwing her over his shoulder fireman style. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Tommy, sprawled and unmoving on the floor. With his free arm he grabs Sam by the scruff of his shirt. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

            They stumble down the stairs in a mad dash, nearly tripping over their own feet. Dean catches him more than once. Sam’s head throbs from where it smashed into the bedroom wall. The front door hangs open, hinges irreparably broken. Dean hurries out first, taking the porch steps two at a time. Sam steps to the edge of the threshold and feels something rough and coarse wrap around his neck.

            With a jerk of the rope, Sam is pulled backwards. The front door slams shut. His fingers fly to his throat, clawing at the coiled cord, digging till he bleeds. It wraps tighter, cutting off his airflow. The angle shifts and Sam feels himself lifted up, toes light against the floor before he leaves it entirely. On the edge of his vision he sees Tommy, watching him dangle. Then the world goes dark, on the edges first, slowly creeping in towards the center. He’s vaguely aware of someone— _Dean_ —pounding on the door, but it won’t budge. His fingers scrabble at the rope, weaker now, nails dragging ineffectively against the knot. He hears a crunch, realizes a half-second later it’s his windpipe. The static in his brain reaches a fever pitch, little _pops_ like fireworks going off behind his eyes. His mouth hangs open, and his tongue lolls out over his lips. He gasps soundlessly as his lungs burn for air. There’s a tremor in his leg. He watches it as his head goes heavy and slumps forward. Then the darkness swells and engulfs his vision, and everything goes still.


	10. Long Distance Lover

In an effort to get people to look 

into each other’s eyes more, 

and also to appease the mutes, 

the government has decided 

to allot each person exactly one hundred   

and sixty-seven words, per day. 

 

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear   

without saying hello. In the restaurant   

I point at chicken noodle soup. 

I am adjusting well to the new way. 

 

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,   

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.   

I saved the rest for you. 

 

When she doesn’t respond, 

I know she’s used up all her words,   

so I slowly whisper I love you 

thirty-two and a third times. 

After that, we just sit on the line   

and listen to each other breathe.

 

**Jeffrey McDaniel _, The Quiet World_**

****

 

                Sam liked California, more than he thought he would. The weather seemed legally bound to always be agreeable, the people were engaging and friendly, and he lived half a block away from an organic granola store.

                Three quarters of the way through freshman year, Sam settled on pre-law. He met Jess on the first day of _An Introduction to Legal Theory and Practice_. She sat two rows in front of him, and Sam watched the early morning light catch her hair and turn it golden.

                It took him most of the semester to work up the courage to talk to her. He’d told himself he was too busy with classes to date, that he couldn’t very well bring a girl like Jess back to his rat-hole of a dorm room, but these were just excuses. Truth be told, Sam was afraid. It’d been so long since he’d tried to interact with someone that wasn’t his family, Sam wasn’t sure he remembered how to be normal. And he wanted so desperately to be normal.

                In the end, he had nothing to worry about. She not only accepted his offer of coffee, she did most of the talking, telling Sam about her family upstate, her desire to become an immigration lawyer to better advocate for migrant workers. She asked about him only as an afterthought, only too content to swallow his bland platitudes and sweeping generalizations. He gave clipped details, staying non-specific.

                “I bet they miss you,” Jess said over beers on their second date.

                “Who?”

                “Your family. What do you think they’re up to right now?”

                Sam downed his beer and checked the time. Quarter to ten—he should head home soon, he had a test in the morning. He’d offer to walk Jess back to her place, angling for a goodnight kiss. He looked into her eyes, searching for meaning, and shrugged. “I don’t know,” Sam said truthfully. “We’re not very close.”

               

                They’d been dating for a little over two years when they moved in together. Sam said it was more practical from a financial stand-point, not that Jess needed much convincing. He let her pick the place and decorate it as she saw fit. He would find himself watching her compare drapes or deciding between two seemingly interchangeable paint swatches, and a sudden swell of affection would smother his heart and threaten to choke him. After years of running, after heartbreak so deep he thought he’d never be able to put himself together again, Sam had finally found a home.

 

                And then Dean showed up. And Jess died screaming, just like their mother. And Sam was right back where he started.

 

                It was hard, at first. Being so close to Dean and not touching him. They hadn’t spoken about it—Sam could barely manage a handful of syllables a day—not that they’d had to. Sam could tell, from the hunch of Dean’s shoulders, the way he tensed whether their fingers brushed reaching for the radio, that Dean would rather peel off his own skin than let Sam touch him. It was not so much that a wall had been built between them, so much as a great ravine. Sam could just make out his brother, a smudge on the far side, but it felt like no matter how much he shouted, Dean would never hear him.

                The hunt for Dad kept them busy, took their minds off things. There were also women—not many, but a few—and some men. They, too, took their minds off things.

                Then Sam died and Dean brought him back. Wagered his life away for a final year with Sam. Maybe it was knowing he’d go to Hell no matter what he did, or maybe having a deadline on everything finally put it all in perspective, but one night Dean came back stinking drunk, pushed Sam up against the wall, and kissed him until he was dizzy for air.

                They didn’t talk about it the next day. They never talked about it, before or after. Sam was afraid to, afraid of what Dean would do, afraid he’d stop. It was always Dean, drunk more often than not, winding his hand through Sam’s hair and tugging his mouth down, or slipping beneath the spray while Sam was in the shower, his arms wrapping round Sam’s waist and tugging him close. It was desperate and needy and Sam lived for it, counting the seconds between each furtive fuck.

                The change was slow, almost imperceptible. Dean would still be drunk, but more tipsy than shit-faced. And he’d actually look Sam in the eye, would kiss him on the mouth and whisper his name when he asked Sam to fuck him. It wasn’t a relationship. It was twisted and wanting, but it was the best Sam could hope for.

                He counted the little victories. Dean kissing him in daylight—miles upon miles in the woods, not a soul but theirs to see, but in the daylight dammit. The first time Dean asked Sam to sleep with him. Not fuck—just sleep. Sam stayed awake the whole night, counting the freckles on the back of Dean’s neck, watching the fine hairs sway in the wave of his breath. Holding his hand in the car, just resting in one or the other’s lap, or just hanging in the space between them as they tore across acres of asphalt, the sky a great big open nothing of blue above them, Dean’s fingers between his.

                Sam convinced himself it was enough. That he could make a life out of stolen moments, whispered pleasures, and hidden joys. There were others, at first, faceless women filtering through Dean’s bed. Each time like a knife in the gut, twisting as they pressed their bodies to Dean’s, cherry-colored mouths against his neck. And then one day they stopped. Sam couldn’t remember when, could never pin down the moment Dean had decided Sam was all he needed. His eyes still wandered—to men as well as women, Sam noticed with a bubble of curious jealousy—but less and less, and it never developed further. The night Dean had politely but firmly turned down three separate suitors, Sam had climbed atop him and nearly broken the bed frame. He’d sucked a constellation of bruises across Dean’s chest, a map to home and heart.

                And then there was the case in Dunwoody, the little girl with eyes of fire. They barely made it out, drunk on foolish luck when they did. Then Biloxi, the long drive, Dean’s hand in his all the way to the motel. Sam’s heart swelled, so big in his chest he thought he’d die. How could you hold so much love inside without breaking?

                Now Sam knew—you couldn’t. He broke, and all his love poured out.


	11. New Way of Life

            Waking is pain, searing and hot, white light so bright it hurts Sam’s eyes to see. He squeezes them shut, and the skin across his forehead draws tight. When he tries to lift his head, a wave of nausea hits him so strong he has to swallow down a mouthful of bile. There is a hand, then, a gentle pressure on his shoulder.

            “Woah, woah, easy. Don’t try to move.” Dean’s voice sounds rough and far away, but when Sam squints, he sees him in a chair next to his bedside, so close his knees press into the mattress. “How are you feeling? Do you want anything, some water?”

            “ _Uh…uhhh._ ” When Sam tries to speak, the only thing that comes out is a strangled sort of groan that sets his throat on fire. He reaches a hand up, fingers tracing the rough ligatures snaking across his neck. His mouth feels parched, and he nods to Dean.

            Dean grabs a cup off the table by Sam’s bed and cradles the back of Sam’s head. He lifts him gently and holds the water to his lips. He takes small sips, the water bitingly cold against the raw meat of his throat, and he sputters, coughing.

            “I got you, take it slow.” Dean sets the cup down, still holding Sam up, and rubs a hand soothingly down his back until Sam quiets and stills. Dean looks like he doesn’t want to let go, but he sits back in his hair. He keeps a hand on Sam’s, the other gripped tight around the hospital bed’s railing.

            “Where—” Sam croaks out before another cough rips its way out of his mouth. Dean half-lunges out of his chair, reaching for the water cup, but Sam shakes his head. He sucks in a slow breath through clenched teeth, and each word is like a rough stone rolled across his tongue. “Where…are…we?”

            “Sacred Heart Central Hospital.” Dean grabs Sam’s hand and squeezes. “You’ve been out for a couple hours.” A weak smile flits across Dean’s mouth, a twitch at the corner of his lips. His eyes wrinkle. “You gave me quite a scare.”

            Sam wants to say something, mouth stuffed with unasked questions— _what happened, Tommy, are_ you _okay_ —but the door to his room opens and a nurse walks in. The pastel of her uniform hugs the swell of her stomach and thighs, and she smiles soft as cotton as she checks Sam’s vitals.

            “How you doing, sweetie? You feeling okay?” She glances at his chart, checks to make sure his IV is secure. She rests a hand on his shoulder in a practiced gesture of comfort. Only then does she seem to notice Dean, notice their intertwined fingers. “I’m sorry, and you are?”

            “Dean. I’m his br—” Dean darts a glance at Sam. He swipes his tongue across his lips, and Sam feels his pulse uptick, a steady thrum through his fingers. His grip tightens. “I’m his boyfriend.”

            Sam’s heart stops, and he’s sure it must be the drugs, the words lost in the cotton-coated fuzz smothering his brain, because there’s no way Dean just said that, not to a stranger, not out loud. He wants desperately to catch Dean’s eye, to make him repeat himself, but Dean’s face is set resolutely forward, his grip iron strong and unwavering. Sam feels, suddenly, more awake, his pain deadened if not dissipated. His face starts to ache, and it is only as an afterthought that he realizes he is smiling ear to ear. The nurse—Joy, her name-tag reads—doesn’t so much as blink, smiling at them as she slides Sam’s chart back into its holder at the foot of his bed.

            “Well, Dean, visiting hours for guests is over, and it’s family only now. You’ll have to stay out in the waiting room till the doctor comes and gives Sam the all clear.”

            Dean opens his mouth to say something, but ends up staring dumbly at her. Sam wants to laugh it’s so funny, but he knows it wouldn’t go over well. Dean still looks like he’s trying to work out an argument, but Sam cover his hand with his.

            “Go.” His rubs his thumb over Dean’s wrist. “I’ll be fine.”

            Dean’s brow knits together, a deep crease between his eyes, and for a second his hold on Sam tightens before he lets go and stands up. He sways on the edge of hesitation, mouth pressed into a thin line. For a second Sam thinks he’ll bend down, plant a kiss on his forehead, but it would be too much, too soon. He marches from the room with resolute steps, refusing to look back, as if he knows he’d be unable to go if he did.

            When the door swings shut, Joy pats Sam’s shoulder and offers him a warm smile. “The doctor should be by in a little bit. Are you feeling okay? Do you need me to get you anything?”

            Sam tells her no, and she leaves. Once he’s alone, Sam lies back, letting his head sink into the pillow. He’s tired, more than he thought, and his eyelids feel heavy as lead. He dozes off.

 

            Sam has a bruised windpipe, and some lacerations on his neck. He’s battered and beat up, but luckily nothing’s broken. The doctor goes over his aftercare, tells him to be more careful when renovating old houses. Sam almost fumbles, not understanding, but quickly agrees to whatever cover story Dean must have told. He signs a few forms and is told he’s good to go.

            They wheel him out into the waiting room. Dean pops out of his chair like a shot, the magazine he’d been reading trampled underfoot as he rushes to grab the handles of Sam’s wheelchair.

            “Really, I’m fine,” he insists, to little effect.

            “Hospital policy. Sorry.”

            A nurse waits with him on the sidewalk while Dean brings the car around. Dean pulls up to the curb, and Sam’s barely standing by the time Dean whips around to open the door for him.

            The drive to the motel is short, but the silence makes it long. Sam can’t tell if his throat is sore from being strung up, or all the things left unsaid. He wishes Dean would turn on the radio. He rolls down the window, lets himself get lost in the white noise of the rushing wind.

            Dean doesn’t bother turning off the car—it’s barely in park before he dashes out to help Sam into the room. “Just—wait here. I’ll be right back.”

            Sam drifts, fingers trailing along the wall as he makes his way to the bed. He sees everything as if for the first time. The burnt orange sheets glow, the gray carpet nearly luminescent. When he sits, a wave of fatigue hits him, and he braces a hand against the headrest.

            “So I figured we could order—you okay?” Dean drops the bag of Sam’s clothes as soon as they walk in, rushing to Sam’s side. His hand hovers an inch from his shoulder, just shy of touching. Sam tries to speak, but nods instead. A weak smile flutters across Dean’s face, and Sam can feel his shoulders relax.

            They end up ordering Chinese. Sam sips egg drop soup while Dean crunches on a spring roll. They watch an all-night movie marathon. Sam falls asleep during _Wolfman_. When he wakes up sometime past 3am, he finds Dean slumped over in an armchair pulled up next to the bed. He’d pulled the covers up to Sam’s neck before passing out.  He gets up to pee before burrowing back under the blankets. He falls asleep watching the rise and fall of Dean’s chest.

 

            The next few days are hobbled together with take-out and TV movies, pain pills and Dean holding cups of water to Sam’s lips. Other than handing him Advil or checking the motley blossom of bruises across Sam’s neck, Dean hesitates to touch him. Talking still hurts—Sam communicates with grunts and pointing, and after the second day Dean buys him a notepad and a pen.

            Sam leaves notes scattered about the motel room—reminders about which channel has the best movies, reminders about how quickly the hot water runs out in the shower, lunch and dinner orders, the same sort of things he’d tell Dean if he could speak. Dean’s loath to leave Sam’s side, only dashing out for food. Sam’s surprised he doesn’t pee with the door open. Had they left things on better terms, he probably would.

            To fill the silence, Dean talks. Asks how Sam’s feeling. Complains about the quality of the food, the selection of movies on TV. Tells him how he exercised Tommy, how he’d figured out it’d been an incubus the whole time. Sam listens, not so much to Dean’s words, but to his voice, its rough cadence, its smooth drawl. It is the best music he’s ever heard.

 

            By the end of the first week, Sam’s nearly crawling out of his skin. Dean doesn’t say it, but Sam’s sure he is too. Dean checks them out of the motel and they load up the car. Sam’s feeling better, but Dean still barely lets him carry his own bag. Sam thinks Dean would carry _him_ if he’d let him. They amble about with no real plan. Dean takes the highway south and they end up on the beach.

            With the last of their credit cards, Dean books them a condo on the shore. It’s big—three bedrooms at least—and more luxurious than anything they’ve ever stayed in. Sam wants it to mean something, the opulence, but maybe Dean was just sick of the press of cheap motel walls.

            Dean gets them lobster for dinner. Actual lobster, still alive and moving and everything. He buys fresh butter and fishes out a pot big enough to boil them. Sam wonders down to the beach while Dean cooks. He appreciates the gesture, if that’s what it is, but he can’t stomach the idea of watching them die, the high-pitched squeal as their lives leaves them. He toes off his shoes and slips his feet beneath the surf.

            He sits down and stretches out. The sun’s already set, but the horizon’s still awash in burnt orange, rapidly fading to the cool blue of night. A smattering of freckled stars pepper the sky, the moon half a ball hung amongst them. Looking up the shore, Sam can see the twinkling lights of a far-off city, like headlights on stationary cars. That’s how Sam feels—stuck, with drive but no direction. The salt air rattles in his lungs, and Sam coughs away a tear.

            “Ain’t this a picture?” Dean grunts as he sits next to Sam, legs drawn up into his chest cause he’s still wearing boots. Sam _hmm_ ’s, nodding, and turns his face to the sea. The crash of the waves blend into a gentle roar. It sounds like humming. “Sammy—Sam. I, uh, I just wanted to say…”

            Sam turns to Dean when he trails off into silence. Dean’s face is turned up to the sky; Sam watches the moon’s reflection shimmer in his eyes and the bob of his throat as he swallows. His knuckles are white where they’re wrapped around his knees.

            “Dean.” Sam lays his hand over Dean’s, and his brother’s whole body goes rigid. For a second neither of them moves. Gradually, the muscles in Dean’s arms soften, and his thumb loops over Sam’s. Sam’s voice is still rough and ragged—it comes out more of a whisper. “I know. Thank you.”

            Sam’s not sure what he’s thankful for—Dean saving his life, Dean _staying_ —but he smiles all the same. Dean locks their fingers, and they sit together watching the waves lap at the shore. All that remains left to be said—where they stand and where they’re going—fades away, carried off by the waves. Staring at the steadily darkening sky, he tightens his grip on Dean’s hand. For the first time in a long time, Sam wants to stay.


End file.
